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In a city run by half-baked bureaucracy, there stood a non-governmental organization called the Lembaga Perlindungan Angin Surga (LPAS), which translates to the Haven of Heavenly Promises. The agency was spearheaded by Bono the Con-Artist Activist. Bono possessed a spectacular, almost magical talent: he could speak for three straight hours without saying anything of substance. He carried himself as a constitutional law prodigy, even though he regularly misread the diner menu, and his true genius lay in extorting bribes to build bulletproof legal shields for corrupt government institutions.
On the other side of town lived Dono the Dimwit. Dono was the kind of guy who, if told to water the plants during a torrential downpour, would hold an umbrella over his head to stay dry while dutifully pouring water from a pitcher onto the bushes. By a stroke of terrible luck, Dono worked as a freelance janitor and was the ultimate serekanโa low-level sidekickโat the City Public Service Department, which happened to be paying for LPASโs premium protection services.
Then there was Joni the Honest Journalist. Joni was a reporter to his very bones, though a desperately impoverished one. His pocket camera was held together by layers of duct tape, his moped required more pushing than riding, and he had been betrayed by sources as many times as there are days in a year. Yet, Joni remained deeply humble. Every time his investigative scoops were stolen or plagiarized, he would simply smile and eat his plain instant ramen. “The universe keeps its receipts,” he would whisper poetically.
Finally, residing at the peak of the city’s moral compass was Old Man Samudra, the Wise Sage. He was stern, just, and possessed a long white beard that symbolized decades of spiritual maturity. Most importantly, he was absolutely immune to bribes, whether offered in the form of corporate project shares or a box of gourmet loaded omelets.
The comedic catastrophe began when Joni the Honest Journalist uncovered a massive scandal. The City Public Service Department had blown its entire annual budget on 500 units of artificial intelligence-powered espresso machinesโeven though the department’s headquarters didn’t even have a stable connection to the power grid.
Humble as always, Joni approached Bono at the agency for confirmation, naively believing Bono was a true champion of the people.
“Ah, my dear friend Joni,” Bono said, adjusting the collar of his flashy, tailored suit. “You are a member of the press, yet you completely fail to read the macro-cosmic geopolitics! Those AI coffee makers aren’t just caffeine dispensers; they are catalysts for integrated bureaucratic digitization! I know this for a fact because I just signed a reputation-safeguarding memorandum with that very department. In short, your story is… fake news!”
The very next morning, Bono betrayed Joni. He stole Joniโs draft notes, twisted the facts into a press release claiming the “Visionary Coffee Initiative” was a masterstroke of governance, and put Joniโs name on it as if the reporter fully endorsed the statement. Finding his name hijacked, Joni merely sighed at a local diner. “Well, perhaps my printer ink lacked cosmic blessings,” Joni muttered, completely unfazed.
However, because LPAS was so busy shielding the top officials from legal scrutiny, they urgently needed a scapegoat to account for the sudden, massive black hole in the public budget. That was when Bono laid his eyes on Dono the Dimwit.
Bono cornered Dono while the janitor was meticulously sweeping falling leaves directly from a tree branch before they could even hit the ground.
“Dono,” Bono said, adopting an insufferably arrogant, deadpan expression. “This department is facing severe financial fluctuations due to administrative turbulence. As a loyal sidekick, you need to sign this ‘Sidekick Shared Burden’ document. Itโs for the honor of our workplace!”
Dono furrowed his brow. “What’s a sidekick shared burden, sir?”
“Itโs… a macro-symbiotic mutualistic relationship! Bottom line: if the department stays safe, you get good karma. Just sign right here, on top of this spit-moistened notary stamp.”
With an innocence that bordered on criminal, Dono signed the paper, completely unaware that the document was an official confession stating that Dono had personally swallowed and taken home all 500 AI coffee machines.
The toxic fallout of protecting a broken institution hit the sidekick instantly. That very afternoon, Dono couldn’t even walk into his own home because the coffee machine vendors had padlocked his front gate. Dono stared at a surprise three-million-dollar electricity bill stuffed into his pocket. “Wow, incredible,” Dono thought proudly. “I must be the CEO of the power company now.”
The comedic catastrophe began when Joni the Honest Journalist uncovered a massive scandal. The City Public Service Department had blown its entire annual budget on 500 units of artificial intelligence-powered espresso machinesโeven though the department’s headquarters didn’t even have a stable connection to the power grid.
Humble as always, Joni approached Bono at the agency for confirmation, naively believing Bono was a true champion of the people.
“Ah, my dear friend Joni,” Bono said, adjusting the collar of his flashy, tailored suit. “You are a member of the press, yet you completely fail to read the macro-cosmic geopolitics! Those AI coffee makers aren’t just caffeine dispensers; they are catalysts for integrated bureaucratic digitization! I know this for a fact because I just signed a reputation-safeguarding memorandum with that very department. In short, your story is… fake news!”
The very next morning, Bono betrayed Joni. He stole Joniโs draft notes, twisted the facts into a press release claiming the “Visionary Coffee Initiative” was a masterstroke of governance, and put Joniโs name on it as if the reporter fully endorsed the statement. Finding his name hijacked, Joni merely sighed at a local diner. “Well, perhaps my printer ink lacked cosmic blessings,” Joni muttered, completely unfazed.
However, because LPAS was so busy shielding the top officials from legal scrutiny, they urgently needed a scapegoat to account for the sudden, massive black hole in the public budget. That was when Bono laid his eyes on Dono the Dimwit.
Bono cornered Dono while the janitor was meticulously sweeping falling leaves directly from a tree branch before they could even hit the ground.
“Dono,” Bono said, adopting an insufferably arrogant, deadpan expression. “This department is facing severe financial fluctuations due to administrative turbulence. As a loyal sidekick, you need to sign this ‘Sidekick Shared Burden’ document. Itโs for the honor of our workplace!”
Dono furrowed his brow. “What’s a sidekick shared burden, sir?”
“Itโs… a macro-symbiotic mutualistic relationship! Bottom line: if the department stays safe, you get good karma. Just sign right here, on top of this spit-moistened notary stamp.”
The absurdity escalated until it finally reached the ears of Old Man Samudra. Seeing Joni starved to the bone from constant betrayals and Dono facing prison time for his sheer ignorance, Old Man Samudra slammed his hand onto the stone table at the town square.
“Enough!” the Wise Sage’s voice thundered, sending flocks of pigeons scattering into the sky.
Old Man Samudra rallied the citizens, brought Joni with his duct-taped camera to document the historic moment, and dragged Bono before a public tribunal at city hall. Cornered, Bono screamed, “Old Man! I was protecting the department to maintain municipal stability! If this institution falls, our city’s reputation crumbles! This is a textbook case of structural-functional integrative reconciliation!”
“Silence, Bono!” Old Man Samudra cut him off, stern and unyielding. He snatched the broom out of Dono’s hands and drove the handle firmly into the dirt.
“You have completely twisted the meaning of protection. Holding an umbrella over a tree with rotten roots won’t make it bear fruit. You aren’t maintaining stability; you are just delaying the explosion! You use massive vocabulary just to hide a tiny heart and a greedy wallet!”
He pointed directly at Dono, who was still trying to lick another notary stamp.
“The most horrific consequence of a broken agency protecting corrupt elites is the absolute devastation it brings to the sidekicksโthe everyday, ordinary people at the very bottom. The institution you protected gets to sleep on mattress-padded beds, while Dono, this naive sidekick, has to choke on the ashes of your sins. The rot you cover up at the top always flows downward, crushing those who lack the power to fight back!”
The Wise Sage then turned to Joni the Honest Journalist. “And as for you, Joni, remember this. In a world where the stage is commanded by the cunning and the audience is filled with the gullible, an honest reporter will always look like a madman talking to a brick wall. But know this: no matter how small the crack of light you carry, a darkness protected by a thousand corrupt agencies can never truly extinguish it.”
Dono chime in from the corner, “Heโs right, Old Man! The regular postage stamps taste kind of sweet, but these notary ones are super bitter.” Everyone in the town square collectively facepalmed.
To ensure Bono the con-artist activist learned his lesson, Old Man Samudra handed down a Three-Part Absurd Punishment that had to be executed immediately:
- The Human Dictionary: Bono was sentenced to serve as Donoโs personal assistant for a year. He was strictly banned from using pretentious buzzwords (like stability, institution, integration, regulation). Every time Bono accidentally uttered a buzzword, he had to pay a fine consisting of a hot meal delivered to Joni the Honest Journalist. Within three days, Joni gained noticeable weight because Bono kept shouting in frustration, “This is a massive conspiracy… uh, I mean, a sneaky group plot!” triggering endless food fines.
- The Manual AI Coffee Drone: Since Bono fought so hard to defend the AI coffee machines, he was forced to climb inside a giant, hollow wooden replica of an espresso machine placed in the town square. Every morning, Bono had to mimic the machine’s sound effects (“Bzzzz… click… chug-chug-whirrr”) while manually crushing coffee beans with a rock, passing the cups through a tiny slot to passing pedestrians.
- The Mind-Reading Trivia: Every evening, Bono had to answer one philosophical question posed by Dono. If Bono failed to answer or gave a convoluted explanation, Dono earned the right to splash Bonoโs feet with dirty mop water. On the first day, Dono asked, “Mr. Bono, if a flamingo sleeps standing up on one leg, who does it leave its other leg with?” Bono launched into a lecture on macro-zoological anatomy, and SPLASH! His shoes were soaked instantly because Dono only wanted a simple answer: “It leaves it with destiny, sir.”
The city ultimately learned a profound lesson from Donoโs ignorance and Bonoโs deception: when justice and protection are turned into commercial commodities to fortify corporate power, morality morphs into a cosmic joke. A corrupt agency never truly protects an institution; it merely hoards a massive debt of bad karma, and the bill is always unfairly delivered to the address of the innocent sidekicks.
Joni the Honest Journalist was eventually gifted a brand-new, tape-free camera by the townspeople, though he chose to remain humble. His front-page headline the next day went viral: “When the Mouth of a Corrupt Activist is Silenced by the Logic of a Dimwit.”
Old Man Samudra walked back to his mountain retreat, leaving behind one final piece of wisdom: “He who builds a fortress of lies to protect corruption will eventually find himself imprisoned within its walls. And there is no prison more torturous for a man who thinks he is brilliant, than to be forced to serve the very person he deemed a fool.”
As for Dono? Dono finally understood what it meant to be a true partner. Now, every time he sees Bono sweating inside the giant coffee box, Dono affectionately hands him a cup of coffee stirred with the handle of his broom. It was a perfectly harmonious, completely ridiculous ending.
Created by: bhayaksa.net
Editor: bhayaksa.net Team
