Once upon a time the Big Boss of a factory in a fast developing country in Asia was exploring possibilities of new potential markets for his shoe factory newly designed shoes. At their normal Monday morning staff meeting the boss asked everyone to keep quiet for a period of time to ponder and think as to what the factory should embark upon to expand their shoe-market.
After that silent morning prayer, so to speak, the boss asked every member of staff to dish out their contributions. Rapporteurs were at hand to minute down every detail of the discussions. Finally the boss, at the end of the morning staff meeting, decided and said, “Based on our discussions this morning, I want to send you Encik Singkolomutaitaitingaudikoput to that part of the African Continent to find out the marketability of our shoes there. Take your time, be prudent and find out everything. Come back and report to me direct.”
Encik Singko, as he was accustomed to be called, requested two other members of his Department to come with him. He asked his secretary to request the Travel and Ticketing Department of their factory to prepare their return tickets. By their tickets they had 2 weeks to perform their assigned duties.
When they arrived at the African country they were assigned to go to, they were very surprised to find out that no one used shoes in that country. “Appallingly primitive”, they blurted out. They traveled all over and found out that the situations were the same. “Truly a waste of time! Who ever suggested expansions here”?
When they came back, they reported to their boss. All three of them were very enthusiastic in seeing their Boss’s reactions on hearing their reports. All three of them went in to their boss’s room. Encik Singko said, “Boss, all the three of us went on that fact-finding mission. We found out that no one, really no one, used shoes there. The whole population was not in the habit of putting on shoes. There was no point for us to expand our trade to that country. It’s a waste of time.” The boss thanked them for their findings.
The boss send another person out to the same country to find out about the same thing, the marketability of shoes there. He told him to come back and to verbally report to him directly. Only two people went on this trip. They had open return tickets. When they came to that country, they were very enthusiastically surprised for all the people they saw and talked to did not use shoes. “Great potentials,” they blurted out. “This is the chance of a lifetime. We should introduce shoes to them or they to shoes! Big ready market!” They returned immediately and made their verbal reports to their boss. Their boss thanked them for their findings.
“Do You See Any Planted Poles?”
“No, there is none, no standing post, pole or stick anywhere for miles. Maybe there is none at all in the whole desert!” they answered.
A pack of dog went out into the desert to look for their master. The desert was hot and even well-trained k-nines could get lost. Tracks were hard to last, in fact, they did not stay long or just for a little while, if at all they tried. The desert wind was strong and it blew continuously, consistently, giving tracks no chance to register. The sand was flat, it fact, it was so flat that it was as flat as a level playing field for many miles around. There were no plants, no bush, shrubs or trees. There was no sand dune. There was nothing any taller than the flat sand itself.
So a few days went by and finally the dogs came back one by one. Dog No.10, Godoot, did not appear. Everyone was waiting for him for he was the pack-leader, the top dog. “We got to go and look for him,” Goboi said. “Be wise, give him a few more hours,” Linggoi advised. When they have exhausted their last ounce of hope, they organized a search party consisting of professionals but one, a priest, a doctor, a scientist, a trained vet and a teacher. The other one in the group, the ‘but’, was Kuk, a Form 2 student.
The search party made preparations for the journey. Each one of them packed their own necessities. Kuk had the lightest knapsack. He wanted to travel light. He did not bring a toothbrush, he did not bring a comb. He did not want to be slowed down. He wanted to travel light. The other members of the group had pints upon pints of drinking water with them. Some of them even brought a few cans of siss! (cans of beer. When the ring is pulled off the can, the sound made was “siss…”, thus popularizing the replacement and hiding name of the real stuff). The professionals were literally heavy adults with different heavy metaphoric baggages they have always carried along with them.
To their expected horror they found Godoot on his back, motionless, staring at the sky. All four legs seemed to point at something above him. The doctor went to work straight away and established that the cause of the death was blood poisoning. The other professionals conferred as to why he was staring skywards…heavenwards. The priest had no theory. He assured them he would perform the last rites for Godoot. The scientist suggested that Godoot’s peculiar dying position was a red herring and had no bearing as to who or what poisoned him. The vet concurred with the scientist but the teacher said, “Wait a minute a sec, not just quite…let’s hear what Kuk has to say.” They all turned to Kuk.
“Father, Docs and gentlemen, sorry for I am still young. I do not claim to equal myself with you all. I was entertained, really, to hear you all arguing as to what or who poisoned Godoot. I am sorry to tell you, he poisoned himself.” The scientist was very interested to hear that. That was one avenue he was in fact thinking about. He called for the attention of the others and asked Kuk to continue. “He was poisoned by his own urine,” he said. Everyone, including the learned scientist said, “But how? But surely, he must have been so thirsty that he drank his own urine!”
“Do you see any posts, poles or car tyres around”? Kuk asked them. They answered that there was none. They said that there might be none of those things in the whole desert. Kuk said that all male dogs had the habit of easing at a post, pole, car-tyre, fence, tree-trunk, wall, bush or anything higher than the ground. There was none of those things in the desert. He could not ease himself. He held fast to his habit. He did not want to let it go. He rather died. He died for his principle…the lifting up of the right leg so that he could better urinate the tree-trunk and establish a mark of his territories.
“Stupid dog!” they whispered softly, fearing Godoot would hear. Kuk heard them whispered sofly and smiled his reactions discretely. “Who’re more stupid”?
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