As a vampire, I never feel hungry. But this evening I wasn’t even feeling thirsty. I was sitting on my tree branch minding my own business when King Vikram hauled me on to his back and started walking towards a place where he intended to kill me.

-Listen up O’ King, I said, I will tell you a story. At the end of the story, I will ask you a question. If you know the answer and speak it to me, I will escape and fly away. However, if you know the answer and remain silent, your head will burst into a thousand pieces, in which case you will find it impossible to floss your teeth effectively.

Near the West Coast of America, O’ King, I began, is the relatively inscrutable state of Texas.

Surely, it's smaller than Dallas

The citizens of this state live in a daily fear of its Supreme Court, an institution staffed with judges that are extremely quick to judge. “Guilty is the most popular word heard within the hallowed halls of the Texan Supreme Court, followed by “Surely, it’s not bigger than Dallas”.

One day a young boy by the name of Marc found himself accused of a particularly heinous crime. Marc was innocent of the the crime. In fact, he was largely a innocent fellow – he hadn’t even been on a third date with a girl (something he had rather been looking forward to).

Marc was a young man — but a proud one. He held his head upright even as the prosecution sprayed a dizzying assortment of allegations on his blameless character. Even the judge kept forming his fingers into imaginary quotation marks every time he said the words “innocent.” On such occasions, Marc’s eyes flashed with anger. Continued…

You can read the first part of this story by clicking here. It is generally considered good practice to read the first half of the story before going to the ending. The ending of the story is below.

Part II of the Story In Which An Employer and an Employee Examine Loyalties

-Why sir, Andrew said, I wouldn’t dream of doing that to my boss. Every layer of fat on his body has rippled with nothing but goodness towards me. If it’s shares you want, take the ten percent that he had was kind enough to give me earlier this year.

Saying so, Andrew promptly signed off his share of the company to the Chief Investor. He then called his wife and son and asked them to do the same.

Andrew's daughter would forego shopping at this store

His wife who was also his childhood sweetheart signed on the share transfer document without a question.

His son was disappointed. After all, his father was asking for the money that would guarantee his higher education in the long term. However he saw greater value in remaining in his father’s good books, so as to support his drinking habit in the short term.

Andrew’s daughter was a minor and had no say in the matter. She sighed silently and resigned herself to a life where with a reduced inflow of money, she would shop at Old Navy. Continued…

There is an old saying that says success is 99% sweating profusely. Or something like that. Well, for King Vikram and his descendants, 99% is just not cutting it. They need to step it up to 100% if they are to kill me. Why today, just as he has a thousand thousand times before, King Vikram hauled me from the tree on to his back and said proudly, Today I will kill you vampire!

And just like a thousand thousand times before I said, O’ King, let me tell me a story to pass the time.

At the end of the story, I will ask you a question. If you answer the question correctly, I will escape and fly away to my tree. But if you know the answer to the question and remain silent, your head will burst into a thousand pieces. Should this happen, your health insurance premiums will undoubtedly rise steeply.

Not very long ago, I began, in a town not very far away there was a CEO who ran a company. But all was not well. His operation was ailing and in his darker moments, the CEO couldn’t remember if the word profit began with a p. Just when it seemed that the giant boot of fate would squash the chewing gum of his aspirations, his fortunes took a turn for the better.

The giant boot of fate was squashing the chewing gum of his aspirations

He hired a man called Andrew (Andy only to his childhood sweetheart, who was now his wife). Andrew was a man with a keen intellect and thick rimmed glasses. As soon as he joined the company, Andrew went about setting things right.

First, he fired three people that had whiskey bottles on their desks in place of their pen stands. He also asked a gentleman who confused a word processor with a food processor to “leave at once”. The man left the office with a basket of onions that were decidedly not diced.

His actions bore immediate results. Profits at the startup took to the wings of an eagle and soared over the New York City skyline.

-Thank you Andy, said the CEO, giving credit where it was due.

-Andrew, his employee corrected (for he was Andy only to his childhood sweetheart, who was now his wife).
Continued…

Today, I was going to blog about why I like drinking blood. But as I sat on the branches of my tree, King Vikram, like so many of his ancestors, interrupted my ruminations by trying to capture and kill me.

He  hauled me on to his back like I was a bag of rice. With a determined air he said, Today I will kill you vampire!

I sighed deeply (is there any other way), and just as I have over the last many thousand years, gave my captor a set of choices.

-Listen King, I said, I will tell you a story, at the end of which I will ask you a question. If  you answer the question properly, I will escape and fly away to my tree.

Beware! If you know the answer and remain silent, your head will burst into a thousand pieces. Be mindful for in such a state, you will find it impossible to floss your teeth properly.

But you might be compelled to remain silent because you lack the knowledge or the wisdom to provide an answer. In that case,  I will willingly lie down on the ground like an ill fated onion so that you may chop me into tiny pieces.

-Humph, said King Vikram.  Like his forefathers, he didn’t belong to the chatty type.

-Listen O’ King to this true tale, I began.

Not many years ago lived in our part of the world a  girl by the name of Alice. She was a pretty girl and had three eager suitors, Tom, Bob and Mike. Continued…