Logic [FICTOID]

The astrologer brought the queen the sobering news:  “The child you bear will destroy the world as we know it.”

“Will it be by fire or ice?” asked the queen.  “By storm or gale?”

“None of those,” said the astrologer.  “The end will come through logic and reason.”

The queen looked perplexed (who wouldn’t under such circumstances?).  “Logic and reason are only ideas.  How can ideas harm anything?”

“Everything harmed is harmed by ideas,” said the astrologer.  “One person thinks something different from another and takes steps to bring it ab out.  The other person opposes them.  harm results.”

“How can logic and reason cause harm?” asked the queen.

“The stars guide us,” said the astrologer.  “They ordain our future.  Know the stars, know your fate.

“Logic and reason defy the stars, undermining their cosmic authority.

“Bring this child to term, and our entire culture will perish.”

“Ah,” said the queen.  “The culture will pass away but not the world and the people in it?”

“In the sense that the old, safe, secure way of ordering their lives will be gone, yes, this child will end the world.  As for their gross physical form…well…no.

“But who wants a mere physical existence when one can be an intrinsic part of the cosmic order?”

“And the fact you astrologers charge a pretty penny for vague, enigmatic, contradictory advice would havce nothing to do with it?”

“None at all, your majesty/  It is thus ordained.  Who are we to oppose it?”

“But your advice is no good.”

“Who is to say?”

“I am to say,” said the queer, hotly.

“With all due courtesy and no disrespect to your majesty, you are not a trained astrologer.”

“I am an absolute monarch who can claim your head with the snap of my finger.”

“Thus proving my original thesis that ideas guided by logic and reason are harmful.”

The queen snapped her finger and pointed at the astrologer.  The court headsman -- a big, brawny fellow whose sword gleamed as brightly as his body -- swung his scimitar and neatly took the astrologer’s head off.

“Damn straight,” said the queen to the severed head as it slid into unconsciousness and death.

© Buzz Dixon