WHAT IF THERE WERE NO SECRETS?
EPISODE #000081
OPEN SESAME OIL SPILL
A Fairly Farfetched Tale of Amazing Grease, Openness & Other People’s Business
Once upon a time, in the veiled, velvet-shuttered, magically padlocked realm of Sheikcrecy, everything important was just barely out of reach.
<<IMAGE MISSING>>
The royal scrolls were sealed behind seven sigils.
The bank vaults whispered in forgotten tongues.
The wizard council’s spellbooks bit anyone who peeked without permission.
Children were sworn to secrecy before learning their parents’ real names.
And then—on a Tuesday, as most disasters are wont to begin—a steam zeppelin exploded mid-sky.
It was the infamous Outlaw Dirigible BlahBlahBlah, smuggling a forbidden cargo of Molly Lablaw’s Magic Open Sesame Oil—a shimmering, golden slick of mischief, legendarily reputed to be capable of opening any lock, seal, or hinge with the application of the tiniest smidgeon.
Normally, such specialized oil was measured out in single droplets by thieves, spies, and the occasional locksmithing lawyer-bard. But with an entire steam zeppelin’s worth ransacked and detonated by the Empirical Unimerican Anti-Piracy Steam Force, the sky itself cracked open in a rain of liquid permission.
<IMAGE MISSING: MAGICAL GOLDEN OIL RAINS DOWN FROM AN EXPLODING STEAM ZEPPELIN OVER A SMALL FANTASY KINGDOM AND ITS RESIDENTS>
The First Unlockings came subtly.
An innkeeper’s liquor cabinet bloomed open mid-argument.
A priest’s confessional whispered all its secrets to the wind.
The King’s private diary fluttered open and paraded its contents—lustful musings and budget complaints—down the castle hallway like enchanted laundry.
Then came the Great Unclasping.
Vaults screamed open like metal clams.
Mystic prisons burst, freeing time-frozen dragons and sorcerers stuck mid-thought.
Entire libraries of censored knowledge spilled their pages across courtyards and kindergartens.
And yet, not a single lock would lock again.
Not with bolts.
Not with magic.
Not even with threats.
The oil had sunk into the soil, the stone, and the story of Sheikcrecy.
Nothing would ever stay shut again.
At first, panic.
The monarchy resigned out of embarrassment, after their family secrets were set to music and performed by a wandering chorus of truth elves.
Thieves found stealing pointless, because anyone could just walk into any vault and browse.
Wizards wailed about broken boundaries. “My privacy!” cried Grand Vizier Profundity the Abstruse. “All my spells are nude!”
But then… something changed.
A silence.
Then laughter.
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Someone had snuck into the royal kitchens and baked all the secret family recipes into pies for the public.
Someone else had read every guarded war plan—and decided to throw a picnic on the battlefield.
Children, newly able to read any book ever banned, became weirdly well-adjusted philosophers overnight.
The kingdom evolved.
With nothing left to lock the Bank of Secrets rebranded as the Free Knowledge Exchange, accepting gossip, dreams, and wildly speculative ideas as currency.
Next, members of the former thieves’ guild founded the Ministry of Transparent Affairs, teaching civic curiosity and responsible snooping.
It wasn’t long before all passwords and wards became poems, freely shared but requiring vulnerability to enter.
Soon all the magic schools removed their tests entirely, because cheating was now pointless—everyone’s answers were open.
So were their fears… and their dreams.
As for crime?
Nearly vanished.
Why bother stealing when everyone saw you do it and knew why?
The Kingdom of Sheikcrecy became the Queendom of Knowing.
They held Radical Openness and Transparency Fests. They published Emotion Blogs. They passed a law mandating that everyone have one friend who always tells them the truth, no matter how awkward.
But beyond the Queendom’s borders… things were different.
The Greed Barons of Distrustia panicked when openness continued to spread and their treasure vaults became public art exhibits.
The High Council of Obfuscaria declared a holy war against “The Heresy of Knowing Too Much.”
And in the Empire of Crypto Corporea, every secret ingredient was leaked. Sales plummeted. Their CEO was last seen screaming, “Everyone knows about the 11 herbs and spices!? No one must ever discover what’s in the secret sauce!”
<IMAGE MISSING: THE INFAMOUS MOLLY LABLAW LOUNGES LIKE A SAINT IN HER SKY-DRIFTING STEAM TUB HIGH ABOVE THE QUEENDOM OF OPENNESS>
Meanwhile, Molly Lablaw—the now canonized Saint of Openness—smiled in her sky-drifting steam-powered bathtub, floating along the oily breeze, writing an autobiography detailing how she purposefully engineered the whole spill affair.
BLAHBLAHBLAH: Transparency and the Oily Opening Story of Molly Lablaw became an instant bestseller made available mid-sentence to anyone who asked.
And you, dear reader, who stumbled upon this tale while fumbling with the key to your own heart:
What locks still bind you?
What have you sealed so tight you forgot it ever lived?
And if someone spilled a little Open Sesame Oil on your soul…
What might bloom?
NEVER THE END…