Diogenes Fernando is listening to golden oldies on the radio in his VIP tuk-tuk. It’s early evening, and he’s tucked away out of sight behind the Feisty Fisherman, his usual refuge when he’s got things to think about.
Himself, famed astrologer Madam Moonbeam and the banker buddy have been plotting to sabotage The Man’s memoir. Yesterday, they convinced him to postpone publication until he’s elected to parliament. This after he revealed that he has the backing of an influential ‘maybe’ candidate in the upcoming presidential election.
My lips are sealed, he said, but the expression ‘the business of government’ might soon mean exactly what it says!
Diogenes and the banker buddy had exchanged glances, while Madam Moonbeam shuffled her tarot cards. This could be good news or bad news. Who are we dealing with here, they ask themselves? Because anyone who can transform our parliamentary asylum into a business is definitely a force to be reckoned with…
The four of them were attending the monthly meeting of the illicit CatAstrophe asset-relocation fund’s management committee. Herein lies the crux of the matter. The plotters fear that any mention of CatAstrophe in this errant tell-all would mean serious repercussions, not least from their clients.
Meanwhile, is this influential ‘maybe’ candidate going to be a threat to their futures? Is The Man doing a shady back-room deal to cut the three of them out of the action? Or worse still, set them up as fall guys while he retrenches and covers his tracks?
On the other hand, thinks Diogenes, could this be just another pirouette in the choreographed dance of the mannequins—turn to the left, turn to the right, two steps back, three steps forward?
He remembers conversations he and The Man had in the early days about the ‘deep state’—the bureaucrats and businessmen who run the nation’s affairs like a game of chess: a king’s gambit here, a bishop’s sacrifice there, advance and retreat. The grandmasters of their chequered universe.
We are all pawns in this great game, The Man had said. But some of us will make it to the eighth rank, and win. I intend to be one of them, whether through luck or judgement, by fair means or foul. Nothing personal, you understand. Strictly business.
Madam Moonbeam had told Diogenes that The Man hinted as much when she strongly advised him to forget about the memoir. It is not written in the stars, she had said, and will almost certainly come back to bite you!
He had acquiesced with hardly a murmur, almost as though he never intended for it to see the light of day. Which made me strongly suspect, she said, that it exists as nothing more than leverage for some murky purpose of his own…
So Diogenes sits back and cranks up the volume as the 1966 Rolling Stones hit single ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ fills the airwaves. Well, he thinks, the great game of politics, power and influence plays on. And he recalls the words of Sir Walter Scott in his epic poem Marmion: ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’