By Anna Pietuszek
(Very loosely inspired by the Trial for Friedrich Flick)
Once upon a time in big town lived an Evil King. He lived in castle and had his own famous factory. The Evil King pretended to be a good ruler, but that was a lie. People in his town were divided. Half of them believed the King was good, but the other half believed the King was a liar.
Nobody knew that in the Evil King’s factory, the workers were prisoners. The Evil King was good at hiding the truth.
The Prisoners did not get good treatment. Evil King did not bring them food, and he did not give them any breaks. When somebody asked the Evil King about his factory, he said “In this factory we make a magic potion which can cure all illnesses.” Some people believed that was a true, so they did not meddle with factory. The second half of the town did not believe it. People said, “That is not possible!”, but the Evil King pretended he did not hear.
But one day the town started gossiping about a man who disappeared.
“I think that yesterday in evening, I saw him with the factory police, near the factory,” said a Shopkeeper.
“In evening? So weird, I heard the police took him because he said bad words about our Evil King,” said another lady.
“Nobody can go near to factory except for the Evil King and his people,” said another person.
A few days later the Evil King had an interview in center of town, and everything was going well until a boy began to insult the Evil King, and then they asked about the people who worked in factory. The Evil King became so mad that he ordered his police to take the boy to the prison.
That was boy’s plan, all along. The boy (name Eric) was sure he would not go to the prison, and he was right. In the evening, the police took him to the factory. Eric wanted to go to the factory because he wanted to know the truth. One day, many years before, his father left for his job at the factory but never came back. When Eric tried to speak to someone about, he was ignored.
When Eric arrived at the factory, everything became clear. He saw all the prisoners who were working on many different potions. Eric thought, “That is for sure not a potion which can cure all illnesses in this town!”
He thought hard, and Eric had an idea to free the workers. His plan was to convince the other workers to run away from the factory and to tell everyone in town what was really happening.
That night, Eric told everyone in the factory what the people in the town believed, that the workers were making a magic potion which could cure every illness in town. They were shocked! One of prisoners said, “What? That is a big lie! I am sure this is not potion which can cure every illness in town! This is poison which makes people stop thinking for themselves!” He was so angry.
“Calm down,” said Eric. “We must escape this place and tell everyone.”
They thought about plan the next night.
“If we stop working, then for sure someone will come to see why, and that will be a good opportunity to escape,” one of the prisoners said.
“Yes! Amazing plan,” said Eric, who was very excited.
A few days later, they stopped work. When a guard saw that no potions were being made, he came to the factory to see what was happening. When he came inside, Eric hit him on his head! Then everyone in factory escaped, and they ran to the center of the town. Eric screamed, “Look! Did you see them? These are the prisoners of the Evil King’s factory! Do you still believe in the Potion which can cure every illness in this town? It was only a lie!”
Suddenly the Evil King appeared and interrupted Eric’s speech. “What? That boy lies! I never would any such things. You know me. I am your Evil King.” The Evil King tried to convince the people, but they did not listen to him, because Eric and the prisoners shouted him down.
“You are only a liar!”, Eric said. “You want to take over in our brains! Now I know everything, and now everyone knows everything!”
The town held an Evil King Trial, at the International Criminal Court for Evil Kings, and The Evil King was found guilty of Crimes Against the Town. The people in the town cast out the Evil King, and Eric became new Evil King, and the factory was closed. And everyone lived happily ever after.