By Rhys Hughes
Because a strict bureaucratic state
wanted to know
how many mythological creatures
still existed,
wistful and wise,
on a certain island in the sea
in a state of nature raw,
they sent an inspector named Hector
to find out for sure.
He bypassed temples, skipped the shrines,
rode the northern railway lines,
determined to dispatch his duty
upon the Isle of Tutti Frutti.
He crossed the strait, hummed a tune,
walked into the afternoon.
Past empty huts and dusty trees,
defying heat with tropic breeze,
and near a mysterious ruined fort,
just tumbled stones, he sat to rest,
as evening slipped into the west.
Then in the dark, a thrumming sound!
One hundred hooves upon the ground
or so he counted with his ear
until the silver moon shone clear
and he was able to see with startled eyes
a truly Ancient Greek surprise.
Standing on the long-parched land
were creatures wondrous and grand,
a herd of centaurs, noble beasts,
with coconut shells in every hand!
Clip-clop! clip-clop! clip-clop!
Those hard halves were bashed
as if hooves at high speed dashed
over the packed sand of the shore.
One declared, “Don’t be scared,
our intentions are mild enough.
If centaur statistics start to drop,
your government will never stop
harassing the imaginary past
and stripping the myths away.”
Hector listened with attention
as the centaur eased the tension
with kind and musical words,
the sweetest he had ever heard:
“The paperwork demands a throng
of healthy centaurs to make it wrong
for developers to invade our island
and spoil the pristine beauty
of the fabled Tutti Frutti,
and so we double what is real
with melodramatic, sonic zeal.
Fifty centaurs with coconut shells
sound one hundred strong.”
Hector smiled to hear the plot,
a simple multiplication of trots.
“But why reveal to me the joke?”
he asked, because he couldn’t see
his value to the centaur folk.
The centaur smiled, calm and tame:
“Because you are here. Write a report
that will help us to defend our home,
a paper in which the truth can hide.
For unless you fiddle the figures
the bureaucrats will push us aside.”
The herd dispersed into the night,
a magnificent but deceptive sight,
and hurrying back to his home,
Hector planned to construct a spell
of deception for this noble cause,
forever charmed by moonlit swells,
and centaurs playing coconut shells.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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