The Inner Monologue

In a bustling kingdom where the affairs of state flowed like rivers through stone channels, there lived a small but steadfast clerk. Each day the clerk bore scrolls and messages from one office to the next, ensuring the business of the realm marched onward.

Now, this clerk dealt with folk of all kinds: some wise, some foolish; some kind, some sour; some skillful, others lost in confusion. Yet above all others, two figures weighed upon the clerk’s spirit: the Idiot and the Ass.

These two did not labor side by side, nor were they always the same persons. Indeed, some days one soul might wear the mantle of the Idiot, and on others become the Ass instead. But in every task, in every parchment penned and every word spoken, the clerk was forced to reckon with them both.

When the clerk asked a simple question, most replied simply.
But the Idiot would not.
The question confused him, though he would not confess confusion.
He did not seek clarity, nor offer sense.
He returned answers tangled as vines, half-formed and half-remembered, bearing only the faintest relation to the question given.
Thus did the Idiot sow bewilderment.

When the clerk next asked a simple question, most replied courteously.
But the Ass would not.
He heard the question plainly, yet feigned ignorance;
He begged explanation only to twist it out of shape;
He gave reply wrapped in pompous words and needless riddles, as though wisdom could be measured by confusion.
He spoke thrice when once would do, and with pride sharper than the quills in the archives.
Thus did the Ass sow vexation.

So the clerk, knowing these two would ever lurk unseen in the corridors of duty, prepared scrolls and speeches armored against folly and arrogance alike. Every instruction was crafted thrice, every thought sharpened for battle not with villains nor traitors, but with the Idiot and the Ass.

And at day’s end, the clerk returned home weary—not from toil of duty to the kingdom, but from wrestling with foolishness and pride.

Moral:
The greatest burden upon honest work is not labor itself, but the folly and vanity of those who refuse to understand or act in good faith.