Reclothing the Emperor

Talk was rife
In the taverns of the town
Had the little child been right?
Had the Emperor truly been naked that day?
Few were yet ready to admit
That they really hadn’t seen any clothes either
Taking a more cautious approach
Pretending they had missed the precession
Or had been unable to see
Stuck standing behind someone very tall
It turns out there had been a lot of very tall people in attendance that day

For those who were already committed
Those who had waxed lyrical about the fineness of his garb
For them there was nothing to do but go all in
Trying to find a consistency amongst themselves
Broad agreement on cut and colour scheme
With ever dissipating hope they may be right

Few were willing yet
To take the bold step
And openly side with the child
And there own eyes
Proclamations from the palace
Declared all talk of a naked Emperor to be preposterous
And reminded subjects only the foolish were unable to see

Then it happened
A group emerged
Openly declaring their support for the child
Were they brave, or foolish, or both?
Loudly, unapologetically, unashamedly
They proclaimed the Emperor had indeed been naked that day

And that he is an aardvark too

‘An aardvark?’

‘Yes and aardvark
A naked aardvark
Plain for all to see’

This was the real conspiracy
His nudity a mere sideshow
In truth the emperor was a nocturnal mammal
Only appearing as human

The tavern erupted with laughter
Those invested in the Emperor’s clothes most of all
For them it was the laughter of relief

‘If the people conteneding he was naked say something so ridiculous
Maybe we’ll get away with it after all’

The town cryers took interest
Bellowing out the message
Now the crazies believed not only that the Emperor had been naked
As if that wasn’t preposterous enough!
But that he was an aardvark too

The Emperor himself addressed the issue
Although some felt doing so was beneath his dignity
So confident he now felt
He even donned his new clothes for the occasion
And joined the laughter

The child
Who by now attracted very little attention
Was at pains to proclaim
He’d said nothing about any aardvark
Only that the emperor had no clothes
A fact which he stood behind

The town didn’t distinguish
Heaping upon him the same ridicule
But the real arrows landed in his back
For the aarvarkists
As they were now called
It was clear this child was a spy
A shill, a mole, a double agent
Letting some of the truth out
In order to hide the sinister reality
That the emperor is an aardvark

There was even talk his father worked at the palace!

And so life in the town went on very much as before
The emperor stopped wearing his new clothes
And over time people largely forgot about them
Only occasionally discussing in the taverns
The strange story of how his Highness had once been accused paraded naked
Anyone who was there could certainly remember seeing the finest clothes imaginable
Even if the details didn’t always line up

Aardvark-ism died away
To be replace with a plentitude of other cults
And the child lived a normal life
Wanting nothing more to do with any of it