In Kurdistan, there is a ruin called The Castle of Errors.

It is said the castle was built by error, its location was chosen by error, the owner married by error, fell ill by error, had councilors by error, gambled by error, fell ill by error, and perished by error, and only a certain amount of errors can be tolerated.

Prior to the rise of Trump, one might have thought no such person as the builder of the present ruin could have existed.

But I have known lesser incompetents. People whose instincts were untimely; whose intelligence was below average; and whose intuition was nonexistent. They were like children splashing through mud puddles, but not with the purpose of fun.

Then there was Mr. Salugi, the busybody of my childhood, who was the “mayor” of my Bronx block. He told us stories about his childhood friend in Italy.

This boy, Fabbio, was a threat to both the animate and inanimate. People whispered that he was a “maligno buffone”–a malignant buffoon. Still others nicknamed him “Incubo,” short for “L’incubo di una madre” or a mother’s nightmare.

Incubo was tormented and bullied because of his peculiarity. This produced his meanness and hatred in later life. It’s one thing to be clumsy, foolish, inept and ostracized, but terrible to be premeditatively harmful, self-absorbed as a rock and cursed with the exile of his soul.

Raphael O’Suna
Ha‘ikū