People call me Maalik, believe you me, they do; Maalik is probably also my name but I cannot be sure. I will have to ask. For in reality I am not Maalik, the reality is something else. The reality is always something else. Reality is a surreally changeable and capricious thing, especially in unreal places such as the one I boss over. It is for good reason they call me Maalik, although that reason may well be that Maalik is my given name. Or so I have been made to believe. I am not my own being, I am not allowed that, although you know very well I am allowed many other things. You suffer the consequences my allowances, so you should know. To me are attributed things that I do not know I have done. I am the one who signs on to all the things that we tell you are unutterably good for you. Look how many garrisons of olive and of green, or very often a bespoke amalgam of the two, I have marshalled in the service of your safety and security. Look how much I have saved for you in fuel, and in telephone and and Internet bills. And in your breakfast and butcher bills. No butcher, no meat, no money spent. See? No shops, no expenditure. See? No movement, and you all have the rare gift of quality time together as family. No news, but that’s proverbially good news. See? On the contrary. On the contrary, because we must consider contrary things and prospects all the time, especially in an unreal and unlikely place such as this, contrary truths are also true. For instance, the less you are able to speak to each other, the less the pain you cause each other. When we talk, we mostly cause each other pain, or envy, or anger, or affront, or irritation, or antipathy and all manner of other pathys, would you not agree? So the less you are able to speak to each other, the more peaceful you are. Imagine not having to speak to your wife (or husband), by law decreed. Bliss. Wouldn’t you agree?

To those who do not agree, I have this to say, firmly and unequivocally: I am the appointed tyranny of the unelected. Do not even dare those things that you propose to dare me with.

Pachtaaogey, bahooot pachhtaaogey.

But misunderstand me you should not. You may not. I am your Maalik, but I am not my own Maalik. You see? There’s a problem. I resemble, I sometimes think in my dimmer moments, the logo of a certain gramophone company. You do not know gramophones, I know. You may not recall that logo, I grant you that. But to cut a not so long story very short, it was about making a metaphor of a mammal and a far more manipulative mammal called man. The lesser mammal being a dog. A loyal mammal, given the occasional bone, and the occasional bashing. I am often reminded that I am a close resemblance to that mammal. I am unstintingly loyal. I bark. When commanded, I bite. But look at me. I am so loveable, ain’t I? Until you let me sniff in you something sinister. Until I am commanded to smell something sinister. And thereafter commanded to bite. Then I bite. And I bleed. And I maim. And I will not stop short of killing, brutally, tearing with my fangs whatever it is that I have been commanded to tear asunder. But it will all be for your own good. So have I been commanded to perceive the situation I am in. So have my masters decreed my mandate. I will whisper to your dying declaration that everything is well. I will admonish your wounds and ordain them obliterated because everything is normal. I will clap my paws on your clamour of protesting because what you call protest is propaganda. I am your Maalik, you see. But in truth I am really a mule, and not even a dog.

Behind my toothy smile

I keep secure my tongue

For it allows me to lie a mile

With all my heart and lung.