Tobias Fulner and the Art of Persuasion

(Disclaimer: this is a farce, and a poorly written one at that. Do you think I can save it in any form? This was written for my self-imposed Tobias Fulner writing challenge. Ladies, I'm waiting for your entries!)

Tobias Fulner was a very young man who believed in the power of the art of persuasion. Every day he would lift his head off of the pillow, stretch, yawn, and persuade himself that the world needed him to get up. And so he did.

Tobias was not a good student in the classical sense of things. He did not like to do homework or yardwork or woodwork or anything he deemed "immoral", a word he used so often it appeared to have less to do with morals than the principle of the thing. His parents deemed him an unruly child and made up their minds to send him to military school.

Little to their knowledge, Tobias, being a believer in the power of the art of persuasion, soon surpassed their wildest dreams and had quickly become an integral part of the Premier's inner circle of military advisors. Unfortunately for his country, Tobias knew nothing of military strategy. All he had was a gift for persuasion and a spunky, lopsided sort of charm.

Therefore, to the chagrin of all the other advisors, the country entered a war in a far corner of the globe. However, this war did not last very long, as Mr. Fulner quickly persuaded the other side to simply give up.

The next day, there was a ticker-tape parade in celebration of the heroic Tobias Fulner. All the children stood outside of their gloomy apartments and cheered for this bemused, funny-looking man who had a way with children and convincing adults to do things.

Later, spurred by the attentions of the local media, Tobias grew interested in the prospect of power, based on things other than persuasion. He had grown tired of continuously having to convince other people to do things. So, he decided one morning as he persuaded himself to get out of bed, he would do his last big job of persuasion. He would persuade the country to replace him as their leader.

So he got in front of the television cameras and the bloggers' screens and made his case. It was quite persuasive, and soon people began to question why he wasn't their leader in the first place. So the whole country mutinied and installed Premier Fulner. Actually, it wasn't a real mutiny per se, as the original premier was persuaded to give up his post too.

Satisfied, Tobias sank into a deep slumber in the cushy bed of the Premier's Palace, which had been built for him by an especially sympathetic crew of architects and construction workers. He woke up automatically the next morning when rays of sunshine tickled his retinas. But, having given up persuasion forever, he could not convince himself to get out of bed.

Days passed, with no signs of Premier Fulner reaching the outside world. Tobias was bedridden. The population became uneasy. They were unused to functioning without a leader for such a long period of time. On the twelfth day of the Premier's self-imposed exile, the people revolted. They installed a new Premier in his place.

The men from the moving company moved Fulner's bed out of the palace, into a small clearing in the nearby woods. Still Tobias would not stir. As it was, Tobias Fulner could not convince himself to do anything anymore. As is usual with these sorts of things, Tobias Fulner died.

At his funeral, no one quite knew what to say. He was buried under a large statue of a charging horse, in a plot he had persuaded the cemetery owner to give to him for free.

In the End

Four minutes ago,
I'll never see you again.
The clock keeps ticking,
this could be the end.
How long will it be
before we disappear?

There's a world I see inside you,
it's waiting to come to life.
You've always been a dreamer,
but reality was in your eyes.
Clear away the cobwebs,
do you see me for who I am?

We only have a minute,
I won't take somebody's place.
Turn around for a moment,
can you recognize my face?
Don't you think we've waited
long enough to know?

There's no time left for us,
the clock has run out.
There's no more time left
to wonder or doubt.
Will you be there for me
in the end?

Questions

Questions that keep me awake at night
(A Song for Joanna Newsom)

What are lies?
What is truth?
How does age
Spring out of youth?

What is hope
And what’s despair?
Does it matter
If I care?

If seeing is believing
And seeing’s with the eyes,
How come things
Come so often in disguise?
What came first,
The stormcloud or the weather?
Surely, they can’t have
Come together.

What is truth?
What are lies?
All these ques-
Tions I despise

What’s despair
And what is hope?
How many threads
Does it take to make a rope?

Springing from the woods
In the dead of the night,
Strange things lurk
Just out of sight
Then in the morning
Comes the dew
What is me
And what are you?