Absurd Justice in the Inverted Kingdom

There was once a mighty king with his only son, whom he loved so much. The prince and his friend, the chief minister’s son, were inseparable, always creating trouble for the people of the kingdom.

One day, the king became irritated by their continued pranksterism, and so he executed some punishments. He asked the queen, “When our son comes back home today, serve him ashes instead of rice.” The minister did the same for his son, too. Finding ashes instead of food, the insulted prince and the minister’s son, in a bout of anger, decided to leave the kingdom.

The two friends arose and reached a weird kingdom, which was ruled by an interesting king named the “Inverted King.” Everything at that place was inverted, with nothing making sense about the system of justice. In fact, people were so used to this strange rule that they referred to him as “The Inverted King.”

The friends found cheap food here, enjoyed themselves, and soon grew quite plump. One day, the Inverted King saw a strange case. A thief attempted to break into a house belonging to someone. The process of breaking into that house resulted in him getting injured on a sharp knife in the house.

He was furious and went to the king, demanding justice for his injury. Having heard out the thief, the Upside-Down King then sided with the thief and said, “The guilt is the homeowner’s for keeping such a sharp knife. Bring him in. I’ll have him executed!”

When the homeowner presented himself before him, he said to the king, “My Lord, this isn’t my fault! I didn’t sharpen my knife this sharp. It was that blacksmith who did the sharpening!”

So forth came the blacksmith from His Majesty. The blacksmith said, when called for an explanation, “Your Majesty, I confess that I sharpened the knife, but it was so sharp because the iron was extremely hard. That is the fault of the supplier, not mine.”

Thereafter, the king summoned the iron supplier into his presence. And the iron supplier said, “Your Majesty, I have only supplied the iron and am not responsible if it was extra hard. Let the craftsman who forged the knife be brought to account.”

And then the king summoned the craftsman. The craftsman told the king, “Your Majesty, this is my submission: I received the order to forge a knife, which I did. Responsibility rests on the engineer who supervised the work.”

Meanwhile, the chief engineer was on his way to the palace to bring word of the recently born prince. The engineer, forced, joined the trial, saying, “My king, I was just doing my job. I am not to blame here.”

The duty finally fell on the newborn prince. The engineer said he had forgotten about the knife due to his joy at the birth of the prince. The upside-down king condemned the baby to death. Because he was still in his infancy stage, the sentence of death could not be applied to him.

The king ordered his officials to look for the plumpest person in the kingdom for execution. They found that the plumpest people were the prince and the son of the minister after their search because they had gained weight due to the cheap food available in the Kingdom.

Before the two friends were to be executed, they began to argue between themselves, each claiming, “I will go to heaven first!” The Inverted King saw that and scratched his head. He told himself, “They are in such haste to go up to heaven; there must be something extraordinary up there.”

At last the king exclaimed, “Halt! Neither of you will go to heaven. I shall go myself!” And with that, the king took the stake and burned himself to death. The people of the kingdom felt immediate, immense relief when the bizarre rule of the king was finally over.

They realized that proper justice must be dispensed in a just system if peace and stability are to be maintained in society. At least, the rule of the inverted king had taught them that chaos is what ensues from the lack of proper justice.

The story is an exaggeration of justice and governance; hence, every occurrence in the story depicts how disorder and preposterousness reign wherever justice and fairness do not.