The Irish Music Stories project explores Irish, Scottish, and other Celtic traditions. To accompany podcasts Shannon shares bite-sized essays and poems.
This piece is bonus content from the final installment of Season 9 “IMS SIDEQUEST” (Episodes 81-86), written after U.S. voters chose to install a leader hell bent on dismantling public education, and dedicated to deporting millions, including families working to give their kids opportunities they couldn’t have in their original countries. It’s a dark tale with a hopeful ending.
King of the Bees
(Winter 2025)
It takes a village to make a megalomaniac. In order for a man to succumb to an obsession with power and delusions of grandeur, he needs context. He needs to be a member of society, to know how he is superior. And he needs hype agents to feed his ego and confidence, to help him believe in his destiny to lead, so that he can develop appropriate levels of swagger and bravado.
Until enough people have the clarity, or audacity, or naiveté to speak up.
Like the fairy tale child who tells the town the emperor is naked. Instead of pretending that he was wearing fine clothes (because the swindling tailors said only wise people could see the finery), the child, knowing nothing of social stations or career instability says, “But he has got nothing on.”
The innocent child reports what he sees. He’s a town criers. A public spokesperson. When he says the emperor has no clothes, he’s speaking truth for the public good.
The queen bee, unlike a human king, is a public servant. It’s her job to lay eggs, so the hive has reproductive male heirs. Their survival depends on it. And if the queen begins producing hungry, lazy, sterile males, the hive forms a tight ball around her and vibrates their wings to heat things up. They bite and sting, and ultimately they suffocate her to make room for a new queen who will work for the whole hive.
Every four years, The U.S. hive ushers in a president on January 20th. In 2025, Inauguration Day coincided with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when Americans celebrate a man committed to building a nation of opportunity for every citizen, and a democracy in which every voter can participate.
It was on a sunny MLK day in 2025 that the United States installed a new leader. By noon it was 27 degrees in Washington, same as it had been for Barack Obama in 2009 and Jimmy Carter in 1977. To keep his luncheon guests (and himself) warm, the 78-year old president-elect moved the celebration indoors, even though it meant there wasn’t room for the thousands who’d reserved tickets and had travelled to be with him. They were ready to brave the cold for him, but he chose to celebrate in the warm grand hall, with sparkling chandeliers and red, white, and blue decor.
His third wife did not shiver in her strapless white gown while she held a Bible for his oath swearing. He forgot to put his hand on the Holy Book when he promised to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich; and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But after the fancy party, he and his richest backer did stop by the rally where his supporters had been watching the festivities on a video screen. He staged a public signing of a few executive orders, including withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and reclassifying civil service employees so they can be fired at will.
After dramatically inking a few pieces of paper, he threw his pen into the crowd and went back to the White House. It was a busy day: eating and parading around; pardoning hundreds of fellow felons; freezing civil rights cases (on Martin Luther King Jr. Day); stopping U.S. support for the World Health Organization; signing orders to establish only two sexes in the U.S. and to end birthright citizenship; and cancelling the system that asylum seekers use to schedule appointments with border agents (which also stranded people with long scheduled appointments).
He also censored the health and science agencies who track communicable diseases and address climate change.
And with that, the elderly ruler went to bed.
Did he dream of his subjects? Did he rest easy knowing that all these hardy people will continue to support his fight to liberate billionaires from taxation, even if they’re left out in the cold?
Even if they lose their green energy jobs and their health coverage?
Even if prices spike because of consumer tariffs—and labor shortages that result from mass deportrations?
Even if he deports their abuelos?
He threw them a marker, after all. And the day before his big party, he’d launched fun crypto coins they could purchase as “expressions of support.”
On that first evening in his White House, was he flooded with contentment, because his end game was to just wear the crown and let his dedicated staff bear any burdens of responsibility and accountability?
Or was his head just a little uneasy? Did he writhe just a little, knowing that his third wife would be enjoying her days away from Washington? Knowing that his campaign promises may hurt some of his voters? Did he suffer from indigestion after his inauguration luncheon of crab cakes, rib eye steak, and apple pie with ice cream? Was he already sick of playing leader?
The beehive is immune to partisan politics. Bees are hardwired to support systems that work for the whole hive. But the new president’s party is not run by bees. And in this fairy tale, whether he rocks himself to sleep alone in his White House, or like the naked emperor, “he bolts upright, stiffer than ever,” it seems his procession will go on, “with his chamberlains holding up his invisible veneer” of control and competence.
Until they don’t. Power is fleeting. Riches fade. So do grief and suffering.
It’s almost Spring again. Winter will soon fade. And using the enduring currency of storytelling, the honest child will look up at the canvas of the sky and report what he sees to his village, as the next king or queen is born.