Flash Fiction #3: The Crownless King
A letter to a future child. Single Story.
The father leaned in towards his now sleeping son, callused hand resting upon his brow, and whispered the same thousand words that he himself had heard as a child:
One day, my son, you will find yourself at a crossroads,
a crossroads that will lead you
to the single, greatest decision you will ever have to make:
being a hero or a villain
paragon or renegade
man or beast.
The Father clenched his fist, feeling his nails against his palm, only half his face touched by the candle’s fire.
And you might think that the decision is easy
that your mind will guide you right
that your heart will pave the way
that you are making the right choice.
But know this, my son:
the colours of the world are not black and white,
all,
or Nothing:
life covers itself in all the shades of the rainbow
and any colour you can imagine in between.
Life isn’t a straight road that cuts the plains in half;
it’s a maze of rights and wrongs that checker the earth
that run from the highest pit to the lowest mountain
through mirror-like lakes and lake-like mirrors.
Life, my son, is both the ultimate question
and ultimate answer
so simply complex that only a chosen,
lucky few can grasp even a sliver of its meaning.
The Father looked at the ring in the fourth finger of his left hand and looked back at his sleeping Son, creaks and splinters of pain echoing through his voice.
When you do find yourself face to face with the crossroads,
my son,
remember this:
loyalty and courage are easy to boast, but hard to serve;
and your dignity is worth more than all the gold strewn throughout this
wretched,
sadistic,
dark world we live in.
When the time comes,
remember to fight the darkness with your light
to cover your words in truth
and your hands in kindness:
be strong like tempered steel
a thorn from a rose at your enemies’ flanks;
be harsh,
yet fair,
and always strive to leave your corner of the world
better than when you found it.
Be a paragon of humility
of loyalty and dedication
to those who would trust you beyond all others.
But most of all,
my son,
be like the flower that gives its fragrance to even the hand that crushes it:
your thorns may pierce their skin,
but it’s your ideals that will capture their souls.
Show the world that there will always be light among the darkness they force upon you,
and you will be a king among men, my son,
whether you wear a crown or not.
The father averted his gaze from his son’s peaceful sleep. Tears criss-crossed the dust and wrinkles on his face as he stood up, inviting the soldiers inside.
He forced himself to watch as the first blade went down against his son’s chest: a violent, metallic rush cutting through the air.
And again.
And again.
An orchestra of blades through flesh, bone, and wood — deaf whimpers quickly subsiding in tandem with the cutting metal.
As quickly as they’d come, the soldiers left: a trail of blood drops leading towards the door.
His mind shut out the cries of a woman behind the door; the banging of fists and the chalk of nails against wood.
That was the moment he knew he wasn’t half the king his bastard son had been.
I don’t remember the context of having written this, but I believe it was somewhere between 2013 and 2016. I think the spark of inspiration came from an image of a dagger with blood around it. Then the idea stumbled around in my head for a few weeks and this came out.
There are stories everywhere we dare look for them. It’s more of a matter of asking questions of what’s around us. If the question “what’s your story?” is too deep and broad, then we can ask smaller questions: “how did you come to be here?” and “why now?”.
The collage emerged from a period of hyper-fixation with, well, digital collages. It is what it is.