Chewers by Masticadores“Humpty Dumpty’s Fall” by Matias Travieso-Diaz
Disrespectful words cannot entirely be eaten, ever. Respect is a kind of Humpty Dumpty.
All the king’s horses can’t put it all the way up again.
– Charlotte Armstrong
Sitting on the rampart of his tall castle, Humpty Dumpty contemplated with disdain the land below and the fortifications of neighboring and faraway kingdoms. Dumpty was putting on years, and aging was not kind to him: he gained a lot of weight, he was flabby and walked unsteadily, and his face exhibited an unhealthy pallor that he sought to hide under orange cosmetics that made him resemble a ripe pomelo. Only his stentorian voice did not weaken with age, and he put it often to good effect to castigate his neighbors.
“You scallywags! You should be thanking me for protecting this valley from the trolls that lurk over the mountains. Instead of paying me homage, you complain about the tribute I ask you to pay and refuse to turn over border lands that I need to increase our common security! But watch out! I can manage very well without you and will be happy to do so!”
Some of his allies sought to temper Dumpty’s violent outbursts by using flattery and making empty promises of cooperation. They attempted to focus Dumpty’s attention on protecting the lands at the foot of the mountains, which were under constant threat of being overtaken by those vicious trolls.
Dumpty haughtily brushed aside these mollification attempts. He bellowed, “No use trying to sweet-talk me into doing what you want! I know what’s best for all the lands in this valley and I’m uniquely qualified and capable to carry out my duties!”
Yet, he just sat idly on his lookout and did nothing to increase the safety of his neighbors or the well-being of his own subordinates, who suffered from the preference Dumpty gave to provisioning his own castle over improving the lots of his subjects and the needs of the realm.
Matters came to a head when Dumpty, who had a long-lasting dispute with one of his neighbors to the east, decided to settle old scores and launched a surprise attack on the neighbor’s kingdom, causing significant loss of life and heavy property damage. The neighbor retaliated by dumping large rocks in the river that traversed the valley, blocking its course. Dumpty did not foresee – despite his self-proclaimed genius – the risks of having a confrontation with a resourceful opponent, and had made no provisions for deploying human and material resources in the quantities needed to unblock the river.
Blocking of the river soon had detrimental effects on Dumpty’s kingdom and those of his allies throughout the valley. It was springtime, when the growing crops were in most need of irrigation. Dumpty could not summon workers fast enough to unblock the river as the adversary kept dumping more boulders on it, so he was forced to issue an urgent all-points notification summoning, and then begged for help with clearing the waterway. His neighbors unanimously refused to assist him, responding that the conflict was one of Dumpty’s own making, and implying that they might been more forthcoming had Dumpty behaved in a conciliatory manner in the past towards his friends and allies.
Dumpty’s conflict with his recalcitrant neighbor went on interminably, draining his kingdom’s resources and the patience of his subjects, whose lives were being impacted by war-caused scarcities. The hostilities also put a damper on Dumpty’s self-proclaimed invincibility, and would have given rise to malicious guffaws throughout neighboring realms, but for the fact that the impasse in the war was also adversely affecting them.
Dumpty was too slow to realize that he placed himself in what chess aficionados call a zugzwang, a situation in which any further move he made would put him at greater disadvantage or threaten to lose the game altogether. He persisted in attempting to prevail over an obdurate antagonist, and became ever more agitated with each failure.
All of a sudden, Dumpty lost his balance and tumbled off his perch, falling to the ground below and breaking into a thousand pieces. Witnesses would later proffer varying accounts of what caused Dumpty’s downfall. Some attributed the collapse to his own violent gestures in reaction to a hopeless situation. Others claimed that someone standing behind Dumpty administered a well-placed shove that forced him off his seat. Still others cited a sudden gust of wind as the force that dislodged him. In any event, after a collapse due either to natural causes or human intervention, Dumpty was left spread on the ground, broken into more pieces than a giant jigsaw puzzle, and all his men could not put him together again.Power
Dumpty’s remains were gathered carefully and buried in an inaccessible canyon, where they could never serve as objects of veneration or scorn. The immortality he longed to achieve was denied him, for no posthumous words of sympathy for Dumpty were recorded after his passing by those who knew him, and he left no trail of love or appreciation behind that would preserve his memory for generations to come.
Copyright © 2026 Matias Travieso-Diaz
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