Tales from the Land of Serenity Part 13

‘Tales from the Land of Serenity’ came into being shortly after the horrific assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta on 16th October 2017. A well-known investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up by a car bomb, minutes away from her home in Bidnija. The title of these stories derives from words spoken by the Maltese Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, a few days after her murder: ‘When the MEPs visit Malta, they will do so with a sense of serenity…’

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The rain did rain and the rain did pour, and even the steadfast cranes looked downcast, maintaining their composure with the air of a pimple-faced sentry who knows he has to do his duty even when his underpants are soaked right through. There are times when serving one’s country strips away the final shreds of dripping dignity.

The Land of Serenity was flooded and the deluge was chock-a-block with debris discarded by the drenched citizens on roads whose well-kept surfaces were now completely submerged. As the civic-minded people waded their weary way home, they swam against the tide of soggy McDonalds boxes, water-logged milk cartons, floating packets of hard-smoked cigarettes, and a strange-shaped assortment of unidentifiable plastic objects which were now just lain to waste. The flotsam and jetsam ofthe needs of yesterday bobbed along carelessly and would have posed a mortal danger if any ultra-modern appliance such as drains had ever been installed.

Thankfully, the land was sewage-free so nothing could clog up the smooth workings of serenity. Not even the voices, faintly heard, from a far-off kingdom in a land of judgement. Not even the voices, far-off and faint, could cause leaks in this tighty-sealed isle of bliss. Although murmurs were heard of words not taught in schools – words like ‘corruption’, ‘criminal gangs’, ‘weakened state institutions’ and the like – there was a general consensus amongst the pin-striped and the faceless that the Land of Serenity wasn’t such a bad little place and that intervening in personal problems wasn’t such a nice thing to do and that calling its citizens and its much-loved leaders to account would be tantamount to bringing the island to its knees, which would be most uncomfortable, particularly in the rain.

One man rhapsodised poetically, saying accusations had been ‘brewing like instant coffee’, conjuring up an immediate thirst amongst the audience, some of whom had to make a quick exit to quench their craving.

Saturated with a desire to do good, the discussion concluded with a final reminder that the Land of Serenity must, like every god-fearing country, abide by the rule of law. Thus, the spirits of the rain-drenched citizens remained undampened, despite the fact their garments had been soiled and some stains were showing through.

In the Land of Serenity, faith in the rule of law was an unquestioned assumption and this was dictated by the rule of law itself. To question the very basis on which serenity was sustained might, on a bad day, have quite explosive consequences because no-one deserves to be inundated with nuisance negativity or immersed in the tired and rusty language of complaint.