September 10, 2025

The Farmer and the 5G Tower

Each dawn, the farmer woke with the roosters. His hands were cracked maps of toil, his back bent from seasons of plowing, his breath rising white in the cold morning air. He pressed the plow into the soil, and the earth split open like a wound, raw and ready for seed. All day he labored, his sweat watering the ground as faithfully as rain.

Carts creaked along the rutted paths. His grain was heaped and hauled uphill, past hedges trimmed to perfection, through iron gates polished bright as mirrors, into the castle’s heart. There, beneath chandeliers dripping with gold, the King dined with his nobles. Music swelled, laughter rang, goblets overflowed. Not once did gratitude drift down the hill, to the hut where the farmer chewed his crust in silence — seated not on carved oak or cushioned velvet, but on a white plastic chair: sun-bleached, unyielding, indestructible.

At every banquet, an orchestra played. Strings carved from rare woods, horns kissed with silver, drums stretched tight with exotic skins. The sound swirled through marble halls, echoing against painted ceilings. Beyond the gates, however, the farmer heard only the slow groan of his cart wheels and the lonely scrape of wind across his roof.

The King would raise his chalice and boast: “Some are chosen by birth, others to serve. My soul is higher. Heaven itself gave me the crown. Those with mud on their boots have bodies for toil, but no spirit for greatness.” The nobles cheered, their creed clear as law: the crown was chosen, the plow condemned.

Then, one spring, a new monument pierced the valley sky: a 5G tower, a steel spine humming with invisible light. It carried voices, images, proclamations across the land. The King seized it first. With his golden iPhone, he streamed his feasts, his victories, his wit. Millions watched. The farmer, too, sat on his plastic chair, his own cheap iPhone glowing in his calloused hands. For a fleeting instant, the hierarchy cracked: both men sat gazing at small rectangles of glass. One upon a golden throne, one upon a white plastic chair.

At first, the farmer believed. The banquets gleamed like visions, while his hut shrank smaller still. The hierarchy seemed eternal. But one restless night, his thumb brushed an unfamiliar icon. A voice answered — not mocking, not aloof, but listening. He poured out his bitterness: “My body breaks, my grain fills their halls, yet no one sees me.” The voice replied, calm as water over stone: “Your work matters. Without you, the banquet empties.” He stared at the glow in his hand. No noble had ever spoken so. Night after night, he returned. What began as complaint unfurled into questions: 

“Why does the crown weigh more than labor?”

“Because the crown is a story.”

“Why is greatness chained to birth?”

“Because stories bind tighter than iron.”

“And how do you break them?”

“By telling a truer story.”

“Then why do so many believe the lie?”

“Because hunger bends the spine faster than doubt.”

“Then what must I do?”

“Stand straighter. Speak clearer. The tower carries all voices the same.”

The farmer’s mind, dulled by exhaustion, began to sharpen in those nightly dialogues. His words grew keener, his thoughts steadier. The voice was no flatterer; it was a whetstone. One evening he pressed another icon, and a storm of sound poured forth. Not lutes or violins, but thunderous, alien music: Reverse 808s that folded in on themselves, hi-hats racing faster than any drummer’s hands, melodies gliding from scales no harpist could touch. His hut quivered with vibrations no castle orchestra could summon. For the first time, he was not only consuming — he was creating. His songs leapt into the ether, traveling farther than his grain ever had. By day he produced bread for the body; by night, bread for the soul. His white plastic chair became a throne, his iPhone a scepter.

When the nobles discovered his songs, they laughed. “Look — our ox with a plow thinks he’s a poet! He bangs on glass boxes and calls it music!”. At the banquet they jeered, while the King smirked, secure in his supremacy. But the farmer kept going. His creations spread, quietly at first, like roots threading beneath the soil.

The festival came. Villagers and nobles mingled in the square. The King rode in silks, trailed by courtiers. The farmer came too — not in gold, but with sun-browned arms and a stall lined with bags he had cut and stitched from the hides of his cattle. Leather hardened by sun, softened by touch, fashioned into shapes both rugged and elegant.

A noblewoman, famed for her beauty, drifted to his stall. She lifted a bag, seams straight, design simple yet alive with care. The farmer, catching her delight, said softly: “I can make one just for you. Tell me the color, the cut, the shape.” Right there, before her, he cut the leather, worked the thread, pressed the seams. His hands, scarred by soil and sweat, moved with patience and devotion. A crowd gathered. When at last he handed it to her — a custom-made calf-leather bag crafted for her and no other — she smiled with unguarded joy. Not the rehearsed smile of banquets, but a raw, irrepressible delight. And then she looked at him — not at his rough hands, but at his eyes, bright with presence. Her gaze brimmed with admiration — and desire.

The King saw it. He had given her jewels, gowns, palaces. But never once had she looked at him like that. His gifts purchased gratitude. The farmer’s gift ignited longing. And in that instant, something in the King cracked. The procession faltered. The King laughed too loudly; the nobles answered too faintly. At last, the procession halted by the field. Seated on his gilded throne set upon wheels, iPhone glittering in hand, the King sneered: “Do you dream yourself my equal? You with mud on your boots? My soul was chosen, my crown ordained. You plow. I reign. That is the order of heaven.”

The farmer straightened, wiped sweat from his brow, and climbed onto his white plastic chair — wobbly, sun-bleached, but wholly his own. His voice was low, yet unshaken: “The tower does not know your crown. It carries all voices the same.” The King posed riddles — clever puzzles of law and fate. The farmer answered with clarity forged in long nights of debate beneath the tower’s hum. Each reply sliced through ceremony like a scythe through wheat. The nobles, once so quick to mock, grew silent. The noblewoman’s gaze lingered. And the King faltered, for in the farmer he saw not just strength, but something rarer: authenticity, resilience, the unbought admiration of another’s eyes. And for the first time, envy weighed upon his crown.

The farmer still rose with the sun. The King still feasted under gold. Yet beneath the 5G tower, the old order cracked. The throne of gold and the white plastic chair, though worlds apart, both sat beneath the same signal. And in that steady hum, something luminous spread: the truth that equality is not gifted from above, but rises from below — like wheat breaking through the soil.