THE FIRST AMONG EQUALS

Pure fiction, of course, especially the butterfly

It was quiet in the municipal park. Quiet, that is, except for the fluttering of butterfly wings as they scurried from flower to flower before fluttering off to pastures new, some of them venturing across the road and into suburban gardens. And it was quiet but for the whirring of a mighty brain as it calculated the myriad things that mighty brains have to calculate, especially when they have the well-being of a nation to consider.

For that mighty brain belonged to he who was first among equals. It belonged, indeed, to the Prime Minister of a once-proud nation, and he had many schemes to let it meander through.

To him, the whole notion of position, of having risen from birth at an already elevated place within society, through childhood and his singularly expensive private education, via the top University (according to those who went there), had to do with wealth. Nothing else really mattered.

The problem was, he was wealthy, but not wealthy enough. What propped up his bank account would, of course, be quite sufficient for most citizens who would live their lives in acceptable luxury with it, and die leaving a surplus to be divided among squabbling progeny, but he liked more than would suit you or I. Of course he did: he was first among equals, as has been stressed already.

He knew one way he could accumulate many more zeroes after the figure defining his wealth, and that was to buy money. Daft as it may sound, buying money can actually earn the buyer a great deal of more money if he can twist events to his advantage.

Which is why he was sitting in the municipal park, head in hands, thinking. He needed to do the twisting. He knew how, he had a brain of sorts, didn’t he? And he knew that currencies were always in a state of flux, rising and falling as if they were on a regime of springs that reacted to the least of movements with a surge of power. Sometimes his own currency, that of the nation he was leader of, rose in value against other currencies, and sometimes it fell. Sometimes it seemed almost worthless, and he spat. Other times it did indeed have remarkable value, and he spat again. He loved spitting.

It was immediately obvious to him that if you bought a unit of currency when it was low and then sold it again when it was high, you earned the difference between high and low with virtually no risk to your own wealth, nor the expenditure of any effort at all.

And he knew what he could do to achieve glorious wealth for himself.

He was in the park (the municipal one) because he was hatching a huge and worthy plan. He was going to send the currency of his nation into a nose-dive and when it reached a low place he was going to buy millions of it. Not him personally, of course, but a company that was really him in disguise. Using more stable currencies that didn’t happen to be nose-diving (which he had in unbelievably valuable piles in his bank, a fact which might make you wonder why he wanted more) he would buy squillions of the home currency (call it pounds for the sake of using a name) and then, when normal things happened like values getting better again and rising to where they once were, selling them for a huge profit. It was a game he liked to play because it made him richer than Croesus, which is the only thing that motivated him. That and sex, that is. He did like sex, enjoying it himself or watching it.

A young couple was frolicking in the grass in the shade of an old oak tree and they partly distracted him. He liked watching young couples frolicking. It reminded him of something he used to know, but had forgotten, something about, what was it? Innocence?

Which is where the park came in. There were often young couples there, sometimes frolicking. He needed a distraction because he was worried. It seemed that he wasn’t the only clever man in the land. There were others, and they understood his plan and were actually thinking of thwarting it. The young couple’s antics might have shown him that all that matters is love, but he wasn’t in a receptive mood because all that actually matters, he was sure, was cold hard cash. He could sense a distant thwarting, and he shuddered.

There was a club that he belonged to. It was a large club with many members, and they all wanted a share in what he was planning and if they didn’t get what they thought should be theirs they threatened to tell tales. Well, not tales, actually, but, as they put it, the truth.

Now he knew one thing. He was first among equals and it wouldn’t take much for him to become last among those same equals if the tales got told and he ended up, Heaven forbid, in a Court of Justice or even in Jail. After all, he wasn’t sure but had an idea that manipulating currencies on the International stage for personal benefit was Very Naughty Indeed, and consequently against the law.

The frolicking couple dusted themselves and sauntered off, hand in hand, enriched by love and the moment, and hand in hand and gazing into each other’s eyes.

The butterfly was still there, fluttering its pretty wings (and they were truly splendid, more splendid than his girlfriend’s bosom) and as it alighted on a flower he caught a glimpse of something he’d never understand because he wasn’t the sort. He caught a glimpse of truth.

The flower and the butterfly were both filled with almost immeasurable beauty and freedom, unlike his girlfriend's bosom which was usually constrained by underwired harnesses and hence lacked freedom, which tarnished the beauty. It seemed, for an insane moment, that he was like the butterfly landing on her flesh and that was all that mattered anywhere under the sun.

And for that moment it seemed to him he would have liked to have a pair of gaudy wings.

Maybe he should offer her a gift of treasures, of diamonds, of gold, of all manner of other gemstones and precious metals. After all, as Prime Minister he could lay his hands on hard cash while nobody was watching without touching his own vast reserves. It was as easy as pissing in the sink and making a joke about it when he was spotted.

The butterfly twiddled off within the moment, and the moment was gone with it.

He stood up just in time for a jolly faced policeman to come up to him and take him by the hand and attach a handcuff on his wrist and march him off with a pleasing joke on his lips. For he was no butterfly but an overprivileged and sad old crook, and there was only one place for him to be.

It was a jolly little drama, but the butterfly didn’t see: it had more important places to go and things to do.

© Peter Rogerson 02.10.19