The King’s Duty To Sleep In
Boomers were gen W because they won the war.
The people before them were the greatest because they proved you could tell people to kill themselves with a measure of success.
The worst thing that could happen to a gambler was that they win.
And here I was, having won and escaped my debt.
More debt than I ever could’ve known as I would learn
Eventually the caravan retired.
I asked my underlings if they could summon my chessboard and they did. In my regal tent, I speculated over it as if I knew what I was looking at.
Sure enough, my opponent would have to move that bishop back or else sacrifice it for a pawn.
And I must’ve waited an hour or two for the panther to move, but he didn’t.
The maids from that little town which I suppose must’ve belonged to C three rolled along in a carriage with some of my belongings. Including that bird. And for some reason, many of the queens changes of clothing.
My mother’s mind would have been set at ease if my servants all rode their own horses.
Surely the kingdom had enough horses. And I had quite admired the creams, pinto’s, champagnes, and speckled grays this day trying to keep my mind off how ludicrously slow we were traveling. That for all the stress and chaos of an airport. The value proposition that aircraft provided was so simple and monumental.
Though I had offered to provide horse and instructor to the maids who feared offending my “ferocious” mares and geldings. They had insisted infuriatingly in my opinion, on riding in the carriage as if luggage themselves.
I understand the appeal of being a passenger princess. But does not the passenger princess realize that to be so is to be mere luggage?
And i say this simply to inform you that my tent in these few hours was visited four times and four times I sent the maids away.
And though I wanted to explore and see wander in the world. I wanted silence more.
And I thank my royal guard for keeping it for me.
My dramatic and moody meditation on strategy was soon to became sleep. For the sun was set.
But not before I ventured fourth into the wider camp to eat a roast duck, and pecans and of cornmeal gruel.
I was again shocked by how much I consumed.
A single duck was clearly not enough for the lion.
The maids ambushed me to ask for purpose in their confused lives.
I told them to go make sure my horses were being well taken care of.
But they suppose if you become servant to the king and queen this is a boring task for you.
I suppose they wanted to wait on me specifically.
And unfortunately, for them, I just wanted to retire and sleep, and for the trip to be over.
I like to think I would be more social and outgoing if I was a king, but I guess it’s not true. And I suppose if I was so outgoing, I wouldn’t be the lion. I would be the wolf, or the mongoose, or the dolphin…
In fact, all the kings, I currently knew of were big cats.
Mankind the feline ape?
I guess for such a thing to be true men would have to be cuter, and furrier.
And then my dark tent where I had snuck out my lantern and rested only upon a small sitting mat bearing my rough trousers as a pillow I drifted to sleep forgetting that entire mattress and bedframe, had been erected in the other room of my giant royal tent.
I served the giant at the top of the beanstalk. For the giant was my lord.
Not spiritually but materially.
I live the happy life of a shepherd with sheep
The entire mountain was mine sort of. I couldn’t really stop the guy from doing whatever he wanted. But if I prepare a couple good sheep for him to eat each season I had nothing to fear from mankind and they’re wretched hives.
With the giant my mountain stayed pure and sweet and innocent and beautiful.
And though the people that I didn’t meet were nice and kindly it only took a look down the rivers and streams to very little villages to see the squalor that lived inside them all.
My own home wasn’t much better, but there was only one of them. And one little home can blend in where one hundred cannot.
But the valley and the mountain were yet still beautiful. Sunlit green, reflective streams, taciturn trees and the gentle heat.
Clouds in the valley sheep under the clouds.
White became rain, became filth became the shaggy dark evidence of a sheep in need of shearing.
But filth washes away.
Walking was slow, but horses are too much work for me. And if shoes cost too much… well… I guess my main fear is worms.
Not too worried about stepping on glass.
I visited the town and I know not what for but I fear it may have been for metal tools, maybe glass.
You know… The source of the blights I have just been lamenting.
Maybe it was out of the deranged form of loneliness I am a misanthrope, but sheep make for awful conversation.
To be more crude. It is spring, and the sheep are want to manufacture lambs.
Perhaps I was simply inspired and annoyed by the abandon at which they did.
But when I got to town the humans invited me to their church.
Where a fat old lady stood behind a few tables serving lunch.
Behind her a pile of dead sheep.
My sheep…
“Go ahead Sonny! It’s on the house!” She called to me.
People bustled around me in the small stone building.
The ground shook, I looked upward for I knew what it meant.
“FEE FI FO FUM I SMELL THE BLOOD OF A RAT!”
That was me, I was the rat, I turned to leave, I had to skip town somehow. But I was in the church right now. Looking up, hoping against reason that nothing happened.
The roof came off and blinding light exposed humanity.
The giant’s breath filled the rotten burrows and people scattered as roaches.
The giant’s fingers snaked towards me. His grubby hairy arm filling the room as he held up the roof as if the lid of a jar.
The giant grabbed me and I was carried without struggle into his mouth.
As his teeth crushed my spine I woke to an aching back.
Why don’t I ever fight back in my dreams?
No that’s right… the queen answered this only a little while ago.
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
Fighting was social, solutions were mechanical. By the time I won there wouldn’t be a fight.
My enemies would just cease to be fed and the labor done to do them dead would be a tedious and careful business done right.
Light and airy feelings would have to wait until the fruits of victory fell into our lap.
But somehow on some level I knew that fate desired more than just my action.
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
I’m love my queen’s voice but that is not why I remember her advice.
I’m sorry to make this all about myself. There is an entire beautiful world out there… but legally speaking I’ve only ever been an individual until a week or two ago.
And not to bombard you with excuses, but I struggle to comprehend that which is not myself.
For instance, my tent has three guards, I can hear one of them snoring. But the other two are quite awake.
If I die they die and worse… you know… just how a kingdom runs.
But that sleeping guy is my favorite because I would sleep too.
I’m not even mad. I told his comrades not to report it then slipped the sleeping beauty a pouch of gold. Inside the pouch I wrote him a note.
“Invest this money in the noble business of slumber, bed frames, pillows, cloths, lullabies, anything that may aid the conquest of slumber…
-Lion”
I gently placed the pouch in his lap. Ready and anxious at his potential waking.
But he slept still, continuing to snore.
I had sparred against him and he wasn’t or lazy, or sloppy, but a heavy obnoxious sleeper. I was surprised he was proving unreliable.
Does that mean he needed sleep?
And guarding the king no less. Not the sort of guy you want on security… not the sort of standard that should be set…
Naturally the next guy sleeping will be given to his Sergeant. But the arbitrary crown takes pity on this one. Hopefully my other two guards are wise enough to realize I won’t tolerate copycats.
I don’t know the punishment for sleeping while guarding the king.
But the royal guards at least act like they are some sort of elite. So I figure this guard needs a little push out of the business he is struggling to fulfill demand for.
Besides, this is chess isn’t it? I don’t need guards at all really. They aren’t even pawns.
The queen expected some foreign realm conquered after all. And dreamland seemed like a potential target after all this time.
I grimaced as I returned to my midnight tent and tried to flop down on my bed.
Is it the King’s responsibility to sleep late so that everybody else can?