It’s early morning. You’re to be put to death in a Thai prison in the evening. Obviously, waiting for the warden to deliver the meal to you in a spartan cell that will probably look like the waiting room of a depressed dentist will be fairly emotional. What would quell that stomach churning and allow your personal constitution to breathe for fate to take its course? You take a look at the menu.
A yellow curry? Saturated with fat, but delicious and comforting. Fatty thoughts have loaded you with a death sentence thus far, so why not follow through? Being content and conservatively understanding your past wouldn’t be so bad.
Or you could opt for a red curry? Not so different from the yellow curry, but less associated with laziness and more associated with anger. They were wrong to sentence you to death. Wrong!
Usually it’s always safe to go with a green curry. Unfortunately you’ve heard the prison chef uses angry green chilies from unfertile soils and, not mild mannered green chilies from middle class windowsill gardens. Wouldn’t this curry only serve to escalate your anxiety with explosions against your stomach walls?
Since these options don’t seem too appealing, you decide to look at the paper. Your new guard, who has found empathy for all the souls that pass him by on their way to meet their constitution, has generously provided it to you.
The front page is awash with Chen Shui Bian being prosecuted in Taipei for corruption. Like you, he’s going to find himself in gaol. Though he won’t need to meet himself sentenced to death like you. He won’t need to tear up his own constitution to know what was right and what was wrong. A much bigger constitution has been used to decide that for him.
You only have your constitution to be accountable to. Your constitution can be pure and divine because the bigger constitution outside is a constitution written by men who are not accountable.
With this epiphany, you decide to eat all of the curries. To be bloated, a victim and angry about it too.