The Golden Walls

The king feared being forgotten more than death. To prove his greatness, he ordered his palace walls painted in pure gold. Each brick blazed under the sun. Travelers marveled, poets praised, rivals grew envious.

But beyond the palace gates, the land cracked with drought. Market women had no wares, farmers abandoned their fields, and mothers fed their children water seasoned with salt to trick their bellies into silence.

When hunger deepened, the people rose. Not with machetes, but with fingernails. They clawed the palace walls, scraping gold flakes into their mouths, weeping as if it were kenkey.

By morning, the palace stood bare. And the king, unseen, unfed, irrelevant, starved within the fortress he thought would immortalize him.

“Power that feeds itself starves its people.”