Thursday, April the 6th, 2006

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Wish Upon a Star

When you wish upon a star, you are almost certainly wasting your time. It is surely not sensible to hope that your future can be in any way influenced by a piece of burning rock hurtling around in space, billions of miles away. Considering such behaviour objectively, it would not be unkind to say that you are deluded, if not completely bonkers. In a crueller age, you would probably have been locked up, or worse.

One can imagine, perhaps, some mediaeval person standing in a field, staring up at the night sky, peering at a faraway star, then closing their eyes briefly, the better to concentrate, and mumbling a wish. Suddenly there is the sound of galloping hooves, and a detachment of horsemen from Prince Fulgencio's palace comes to a halt in front of the wishing peasant.

“Hail, peasant of the night,” their leader might say, an evil smile playing about his thin lips, “What are you about?”

The peasant, knowing how dangerous the Prince's henchmen are, dissembles, muttering something about collecting night-potatoes, or some otherwise innocent deed. The captain of the horsemen cackles, and his companions laugh too, as if they are sharing a joke.

“The Prince will be mighty pleased!” says the captain, wiping spittle from his chin with the sleeve of a rich purple tunic made of cloth so expensive that the peasant gasps at the sight of it, “You must come with us and tell the Prince that his realm has been blessed with potatoes in the sky!” There is a menacing pause. “For you were looking up at the firmament, were you not, rather than down in the muck where potatoes are usually found?”

The peasant knows he is in trouble now, and tries to flee, but he is captured, taken back to Prince Fulgencio's castle, and chained up in an oubliette. Though harsh, the Prince's orders to his henchman make sense, as he does not want his temporal power threatened by a peasantry who owe allegiance to stars, planets, other heavenly bodies, or indeed to any system of supernatural hocus pocus that he cannot control.

Such rigour is pooh-poohed in our more enlightened age, but not everywhere. There are still lands where the modern equivalents of Prince Fulgencio will have a stargazer stoned to death, or chop off their head. Over here we have taken a therapeutic route, and nowadays, if you stand in a field at night wishing upon a star, you are likely to be picked up by Social Services and given counselling until you achieve closure. The inference is the same, however, that by relying upon distant twinkling lights in the sky as a guide to your future, you are clearly a loon.

When you wish upon a star, in the modern age, it is best if you use the word star figuratively. It is quite acceptable for you to wish upon such “stars” as Kevin Costner or Mel Gibson, Celine Dion or that Chantelle girl from Big Brother. This is seen as not only acceptable and safe, but is positively encouraged. Indeed, I get the impression that it is becoming compulsory.

And my wish? Bring back Prince Fulgencio and his henchmen, and set them to do their worst at Celebrity Pap! magazine.

DETOURS : God Speaks To Modern Man … Musæum Clausum … The Atlas Of Forgotten Nations