In the age before maps were drawn upon paper, when people still believed the world was held together by visible things, there arose a strange question among the scholars and travellers.
It began with kingdoms.
Everyone knew kingdoms existed.
Kingdoms raised armies.
Kingdoms made laws.
Kingdoms forged alliances.
Kingdoms carried ancient memories and promised futures yet unborn.
No one doubted their existence.
Yet an old wanderer asked a question that unsettled everyone who heard it:
"Where is the kingdom?"
The question seemed foolish at first.
People pointed immediately.
"There," they said, "the kingdom is that land beyond the river."
But rivers changed.
Borders moved.
Forests became fields.
Still people spoke of the same kingdom.
Others said:
"No—the kingdom is its people."
But children were born.
The old died.
Generations passed like leaves falling from trees.
Still people spoke of the same kingdom.
Others pointed to kings.
To cities.
To banners.
To temples.
To laws.
But kings died.
Cities burned.
Banners rotted.
Temples fell.
Laws were rewritten.
And still people spoke of the same kingdom.
The scholars became troubled.
For the kingdom appeared to exist, yet whenever they reached for it directly, it slipped elsewhere.
At last rumours began spreading.
People whispered that perhaps kingdoms were monsters.
Not false things.
Not illusions.
Monsters.
For ordinary things behaved differently.
A chair remained itself because its wood remained.
A stone remained itself because its body remained.
But kingdoms possessed a strange power.
They could replace nearly every part of themselves and yet endure.
They could call people to sacrifice.
They could shape the names people gave themselves.
They could guide countless lives while possessing no visible body of their own.
The scholars became afraid.
For they thought they had discovered a beast hidden beneath the world.
So they gathered sages from distant lands to hunt it.
Many searched mountains.
Many searched palaces.
Many searched libraries.
But no one found the monster.
Until at last an old woman laughed.
She laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
"You are searching for the wrong creature," she said.
"You believe that whatever exists must sit somewhere as a thing among other things."
The scholars stared.
She continued:
"The kingdom was never hiding."
"You looked for a body where there was only weaving."
Then she showed them.
She showed them roads travelled together.
Stories told around fires.
Shared memories.
Rituals.
Promises.
Symbols.
Laws.
Practices repeated across generations.
None alone was the kingdom.
Yet through their continual weaving something emerged and endured.
Not beneath the threads.
Within their pattern.
And suddenly the monster vanished.
For the kingdom had never been monstrous at all.
Only their expectation had been.
The real monster had been the old belief:
"If something exists, it must exist as a thing unto itself."
And as the scholars left, the old woman called after them:
"Do not celebrate too quickly."
"The world contains many kingdoms without bodies."
"And many monsters still waiting."
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