This week in the saga

On the fourteenth of April the circling stops: the richest man in the world offers to buy the bird outright — the whole platform, forty-four billion dollars, best and final. Overnight, every question in the country collapses into the same one: the buyer says the cage doors should open, so if the ban is lifted, does the old voice go back in? Around the palace the answer is already known. He is staying with the network that carries his name — the one with the hourglass, the one with the waiting list, the one with his single post at the top. There is a certain kind of pride that is indistinguishable from being trapped, and this week nobody can tell which one this is.