“Under my cloak, I kill the king.”

A Spanish Proverb

It so happens that–regardless of whether or not I am given plentifully comfortable instruments for writing, a desk and a windowsill to usher in the morning–I will not be able to tell a reader the truth if they ask me about love. Love; the stillness of the subconscious, the making of a muse, the unknowing, the uncertain, though wholly willing, and wholly open. It so happens that I need to weave in the various narratives of court jesters, princesses, kings and magicians, and parade my heart upon twelve dozen silver platters, clad and starched in lace-woven virtues and proverbial vices. Like The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, I believe with the utmost certainty that the windmills that stretch far and wide across the mountains are wild giants, two leagues long, hiding their faces in the turning millstone. I believe that innkeepers are lords and that, if madness and foolishness can disassemble one’s perception of an inn and rebuild it, there is nothing to say that the inn cannot viably become a castle. 

Wherefore, if one plays with their heartstrings like a fool playing his lute, one cannot arrive at a lover’s impasse. It is simply impossible. If one weaves dreaming into their hair every night before bed, one cannot become dull. In a shroud of legerdemain, the creation of stories becomes a cloak of protection. A jester’s privilege, a sovereign authority over one’s own mind. We see this in every facet of life; undeniably through the use of humour, wit and foolery to hold a mirror to hypocrisy. The fool is a mosaic of many-headed men, the fool is the projectionist and the projection, the fool is machinery. The fool cannot be broken.

The fool’s lover–the foolish lover–the girl beside you on a train bound to an unfamiliar place, whispering and murmuring to each town passing by–the low lamplight of nothing-quite-at-all, humming alone to a suitor’s song–the children standing in the cathedral choir, ungoverned by God–a mother’s blindfold–the father, exempt–in dreams they are one, and behaviour is as behavior is–the alert sailor at the evening helm, the North Star guiding his ship homeward–it’s almost twelve o’clock–the bells are ringing!–they beat and beat and beat their drum.

At long last. Welcome to the jester’s court.

Emmanuelle Kate.

The Fool’s Lover / The Foolish Lover