Emergency meeting held after someone says ‘no’.

The first refusal of his tenure. The nation trembled, briefly.

It happened in a corridor at 9:14 a.m. A clear voice said the word: “No.” Simba stopped mid-stride. Nobody had ever said it to him before, and he was not sure it was legal.

By 9:30 an emergency committee convened to determine whether “no” constituted foreign interference. By lunch he had ordered all dictionaries amended so the word appears only as a misspelling of “now.”

Detectives traced the voice to the building’s lift, which had announced, “No service.” The lift was invited to apologise and declined, a second offence.

He now takes the stairs, which he describes as “a reform.”