The Very Silly Life of Brian ben-Benjamin
In a dusty corner of Jerusalem — the part tourists never found because the signs all pointed the wrong way — lived Brian ben-Benjamin, a young man who was very tired of being mistaken for a messiah, a prophet, or the assistant manager of the local falafel stand.
Brian just wanted a quiet life, preferably one where people didn’t follow him around chanting slogans they had clearly made up on the walk over.
But it was not to be.
The Occupiers… er… Liberators
Jerusalem was currently under the benevolent, freedom-spreading, oil-seeking occupation of the Great American Empire, which claimed it wasn’t an empire at all.
“We’re just here to bring liberty,” drawled General Buck Freedom, sipping a Frappuccino while standing beneath a fifty-foot marble statue of himself.
Everywhere you looked were American soldiers wearing sunglasses, chewing gum, and building new embassies made entirely out of golden eagles and reinforced hamburgers.
Above them, on a massive banner:
“AMERICA FIRST… EVEN OVER HERE!”
The locals were not impressed.
The Emperor Speaks
High above, in a palace decorated like a Las Vegas casino designed by a confused pharaoh, sat Emperor Donald the Tremendous, ruler of the American Empire, wearer of the Sacred Orange Crown.
He delivered daily proclamations via scrolls that were hurled from the balcony by interns.
One such scroll read:
“I bring tremendous peace. The best peace. Quite possibly the greatest peace the world has ever seen.
If there’s chaos, that’s on you. You’re welcome.”
The scroll then exploded into confetti for patriotic effect.
Brian Gets in Trouble (Again)
Brian was cornered in the marketplace by a group called The People’s Front of Judea Who Are Definitely Not The Judean People’s Front.
Their leader, Regina, whispered fiercely:
“Brian! Tell us your revolutionary wisdom!”
“I don’t have revolutionary wisdom!” Brian cried. “All I’ve said is that the Israeli government is just a puppet regime of the Americans!”
The group gasped.
Regina scribbled furiously in her notes.
“Excellent! Brilliant! Absolutely blasphemous! The movement has begun!”
“I didn’t start anything!” Brian protested.
But it was too late.
A crowd instantly formed, chanting:
“BRIAN! BRIAN! DOWN WITH THE PUPPET MASTERS!”
Brian groaned.
“Oh God… not again…”
The Sermon That Shouldn’t Have Been
Forced onto a rock to address the crowd (because Reginia said revolutions need proper staging), Brian attempted to clear his name:
“Look, I’m not a leader, I’m not a messiah, and I don’t want—”
“HE SPEAKS IN PARABLES!” someone shouted.
“No! I speak in complete sentences! Well… usually!”
The crowd fell to its knees.
“Teach us, O Brian!” yelled a man holding a selfie stick two thousand years early.
Brian sighed.
“All I’m saying is… maybe we shouldn’t let a foreign empire with unlimited popcorn budgets run our country?”
The crowd gasped at his divine wisdom.
Regina punched the air.
“The puppet masters will fall! Someone put that on a banner!”
The Americans Respond
General Buck Freedom soon arrived with reinforcements, drones, marching bands, and a man in a bald eagle costume for moral support.
“Brian ben-Benjamin,” boomed the general, “the Emperor says you are undermining freedom!”
“I am?” Brian blinked.
“Yes! Freedom demands obedience! Everyone knows that!”
The marching band started playing a patriotic tune so loudly the camel vendors wept.
The Grand Finale (That Goes Horribly Wrong)
As always with Brian, events spiraled wildly out of control.
Somehow he ended up tied to a giant billboard that read “TRY FREEDOM™ — NOW WITH EXTRA DEMOCRACY!”.
Beside him, several other “troublemakers” had been secured to various advertisement boards.
One man sighed, “This is what we get for questioning the price of American hummus.”
Brian, resigned, looked out at the sky.
“Well… at least it can’t get any sillier.”
Then the clouds parted.
A heavenly voice shouted:
“FAKE NEWS!”
Brian screamed,
“Oh NO — even Heaven is compromised!”
The prisoners began to sing a cheery tune — because in these matters Monty Python tradition is legally binding:
🎵 Always look on the bright side of freedom,
Even when the Empire’s got you down… 🎵
And Brian sighed, because once again he was the unwilling star of a revolution he didn’t intend to start.