You are, without a doubt, the sole heir to an outdated exclusive bloodline granting you a future, a fortune, and an empire. You are aware that your heart is beating faster than you have typically grown accustomed to it doing, as if compelled by some other source external and foreign. You are afraid, but you have no real reason to be afraid. After all, you are a king of sorts.
Despite your best logical protests you have grown to accept the shivering as a second nature, and the vicious fear as unavoidable. It is your duty, granted through noble birth, to stand on the plateau, the desolate unyielding plateau, and address the people.
They stand below you as a faceless mass, a liquid entity waving and pulsating with each cheerful eruption. You feel no satisfaction in their relentless praise, you have grown accustomed to their address, and each and every day it grows more reinforced in its expectation. Their kingdom is dying, their cities lie in shambles, their homes rest in ruin, and their faces are still forced into a grimace that you are told to receive as an expression of their unwavering happiness.
It feels like a lie today, you think, as the crowd chants “Leopold!, Leopold!, Leopold!”. Boldly they proclaim their false love to you their gracious leader. If only they knew that behind closed doors you could neither face yourself in mind or matter of reflection. They tear into you with affection, and are illusionary and negligent in their intentions.
“These people will die. They will die under your immortal reign, which explains the near material value which you are told these people have. They remind you that these people could die tomorrow, to any number of misfortunes, whether it is war, or famine, or the brutal snubbing of their insignificance. They could be erased from the world as if their life was as closed as the casket they are buried in. It all seems like a lie today. That stuff they say is a lie”, you think.
These people expect from you nothing, you have always been, and you have never done; at least never done before. They cheer because they have always cheered, and they will forever cheer as long as you hold close and tight the reigns of their oppression. Outside they chant louder “Leopold!”, and still it stabs in sharp succession.
“Lies!” you hiss as if compelled, no longer in control of each functioning muscle of your quivering lips. You stand both angry and afraid, two emotions totally unfitting of a king. Each is rash, and brings about brash action that cannot be undone.
“These people shout lies, and every statue of you litters the courtyard with Leopolds, over which you preside.” You scream out to you in unison, questioning and interrogatory in harmony with the vultures below. They doubt your rule; they will surely rise up in opposition of your long-lasting oppression. Your mind is reeling, your head is thumping, and you lie slumped as a disheartened leader dreading an eventual decision that will surely spell an end to both your empire and your hirelings, indentured for life in a servant’s service of their master.
“It’s time”, you proclaim to your elite servant, wearing the regalia of his apparent devotion: A tight fitting uniform with gold buttons and brass cuffs.
The tall man whispers with a demanding presence, “Sir, I feel that I should tell you that every one of us waited until the absolute last tolerable moment before doing this. This was a forced hand upon every-one of us, and it was a burden no lone sole wanted to carry. So it was decided that the day you finally spoke those words to me would also be your last.”
With that breath, both hurried and quiet, you, the forever king, is hurled from atop your relentless plateau into the pulsating mass of quiet cannibals.
“Insignificant hungry little things they are, all grasping like animals without any sense of pride or higher etiquette” you think as you fall victim to their claws that are devoid of lying admiration, and truthfully ruthlessly sharp with finality and the end of an era.
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Submission Name: To Rule
