THE PLACE CALLED SPECULAND
During my wanderings I came across a small country that I found rather odd. I called the place speculand. You see, their entire system of ethics was based solely upon speculation. Although their forefathers had indeed been wise and all knowing, they had also just happened to be completely illeterate. They thus had to draw all their laws and beliefs. Their requirement to be a forefather did not include the ability to draw, thus most of the drawings were composed of stick figures. There was one picture of one stick figure hitting another with a stick. No other explaination of any sort was given. This was law number something or other. You see, the forefathers also didn't know how to count.
Of course there were some lovely, well drawn pictures as well. Most of these didn't have any figures in them. There was a picture of a table that looked almost real. There was nothing else in the picture. A table. It was incredible that the current society read so much into that. The picture told them, supposely, that some sort of sexual activity was wrong. The picture told them, supposely that greed was wrong, and that people should share their excess income. The picture told them, that nothing should ever be placed upon a table. There were no other pictures of a table, and thus, the blankness of the table, to them, said it was evil to place something on such a meant-to-be (as they put it) blank space.
The punishment, to matter what the crime, was to be, according to the picture I mentioned at the beginning, hit on the head with a stick, once.
There was a great deal of arguing, and only because of that, was I able to avoid punishment and make my escape.