Yeah--That Reigning Monarch

Dear Diary,        

I’m not the best person on the face of the planet. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to ruling my kingdom. Full of peasants, slave men and women, farm boys and girls, cowhands and every other inferior loser out there.  

I mean, who wants to run a whole kingdom with those people under them, serving so slowly and so forlornly and so…

There’s so many chamber pots to clean, but do the chambermaids scrub, scrub, scrub? No! They’re constantly whining about the stupid poop smell. I mean, you’re chambermaids—clean it up, ladies!

And then there’s… *gasp* the galloping knights—so elegant in all their silvery, shiny armor they wear all day, every day except Sunday. Why can’t they just take up the spear, hunt the poor boar and then watch us eat it at dinner? I mean, is it so hard to throw a stick with a deadly point dipped in poison at the heart of a brutally scared animal?

If I were a pig, I’d stop and close my eyes and just…die.

Like that. There’s no point in running if you’re just going to, like, die.  

Heavy sigh.

Anyway, the queen and king want me to rule this kingdom beside my significant other. The other royal person to whom I’m married. Am I saying marriage is wrong? No—just not something I want to—

Oh, darn, that’s the fifteenth quill pen I broke. *huge sigh*

Here I am again, with a new quill pen. I know, I know. You probably want me to throw it away, too, or—

Wait, you’re going to tell me to give it back. I’m a thief. Well, I don’t see the purpose in giving something back when it’s something I can—

Give it back.

I lifted my pen, staring in disbelief. What the—

Staring right at the page, I waited for the diary to write me back. Iit didn’t.

Then I continued.

Anyway, I—

Don’t want you to complain about everything under the sun, Whiner.

I narrowed my eyes. I’M complaining? Who’s every chambermaid?

Who’s going to be a chambermaid?

With squinted eyes, I scribbled and scribbled, grinning victoriously. When I saw my writings, I nodded triumphantly, but no matter how much I wrote, I could never fill up the entire page. Because it wasn’t all my writing. It was also that of the diary. The diary spoke to me. I ignored its warnings and words of wisdom and continued writing, this pesky thing being the last thing I write in. I wrote and wrote, probably having to shelve this book considering that when I held it up, the white pages were decorated with black ink.

Yes! I congratulated myself. I beat the diary. It can think a while now.

I threw the diary on my throne and got up. Llooking around for something to do, I spied a raven standing on a big nest out of an arched window. It cawed and then flew away. Tthere were some ravens outside on the scarecrow in the field. I went up to the window, and looked out. Mmy forehead crinkled. Those stupid superstitions aren’t anything.

But the ravens kept coming back. I mean, they wouldn’t leave me alone. Why they got to bother me? Just leave me alone. I almost agreed that night as I sat at dinner beside my brothers and parents the king and queen in one of them. Ordering some guards to tightly secure these windows shut, I saw that wood had been placed against them. Tightly. Securely. Telling them to kill any raven that caws, I went to my throne and lounged on it. Looking up at the stone ceiling so very high up (decorated with one boringly faded chandelier), I felt time pass very slowly.

When am I going to reign my own kingdom, my own way?

Yes, yes, I—

Right behind me, on the window sill, was another raven! After I heard the stringy stretch of a bow and arrow, I immediately cried, “Halt!”

But the arrow flew over the throne (somehow in a skilled fashion), and I was halfway through the air before the raven’s body was pierced with such a deadly weapon. Crying out no, I scrambled off the floor to which I fell and clutched the gorgeously black bird, stroking its fine feathers and mourning its death. Ordering guards to put all weapons away, one brave guard challenged me.

“Why should we, when you just complain about everything?”

I looked at him, the dead raven in my hands. Studying the raven, I muttered, “I…”

My diary could be burned. I fell to my knees, my tears for the raven. No raven would come to me now. I would be lonely, with no one to even own as a pet.

“Please—we were just doing our duty, Your Majesty.”

I grew angry, blaming the guard for my orders to kill all ravens. He obviously went to the king and queen, but I have not a care in the world as to whether they spoke all about me. I didn’t care—I ran. I ran far away, to where I didn’t know, but I grabbed my favorite horse, Waterfall, and fled this kingdom. How long I ran, I don’t know.

She dashed and dashed, her heart, I heard and felt in my ears and chest, pounded steadily. I demanded her to run faster, but we stopped a little ways away from a bubbling brook. Drinking deeply, Waterfall swished her tail as I made camp.

No raven appeared.

I was alone.

I returned only to retrieve my diary.

I drew ravens, wrote about them and eventually made up my own little world with ravens.

It worked! I went into the world. But, soon, I befriended the princes and princesses of the kingdom. The ravens flew to me, turning their heads so I could see their seemingly smiling face. But the book was just a story. The diary was just that—a bunch of characters in a story. I returned to the real world, curled up and awoke to the sound of cawing. There’d be cawing in my dream. But dreams are just dreams.

Ravens were just birds.

I returned to the kingdom, but they cast me away. I said I didn’t want them believing in all this stupid superstition stuff. It was just made-up gibberish. They all stared at me, mouth agape, eyes wide and an atmosphere still as night itself. I pursed my lips, thought and nodded. “Yes, all fake.”

“Burn you!”

The king’s order never got carried out. The order was reversed: I said for my father to allow me to live in the kingdom. I just would never speak of superstitions again. He refused my request. “At dawn, I’ll see you go up in flames. Your corpse will be feasted upon by ravens.”

I ran. Taking my diary this time, I penned a story about how someone from the royal kingdom befriended characters from the story in their diary. However, they were lonely, so they—

Built their own kingdom.

We waged war.

I stood there, staring up at the sky like I had done so long ago. As the spear was yanked from my body, I saw black things go in and around up and down, frustrating the doctor person helping me. I struggled to say something without blood emerging from my mouth, but the black things…

I opened my eyes. All these ravens were surrounding me, like I was dead or something. No. I looked. I was alive. I guess…

No, those superstitions were bad. I can’t return to my family. But they’re my family. Can’t someone be different? Why was it so hard? I felt they didn’t care about my differences so long as I stopped whining and complaining about such things around the castle. I sat up, covered partially in fall leaves. Then an arrow pierced a raven. Screaming to save the bird, I tried reviving it, and saw something. Grabbing it, I pressed the cloth to the raven’s wound area. Slowly sliding the arrow out of the bird, I eventually—

No! More ravens were being attacked. They were all dying before me, pierced by arrows. I struggled to save them, to rescue them. Then something came to mind. My diary! I grabbed it, it being somewhere somehow and scribbled in it. I looked around me. The ravens were with me, in the diary!

Gonna save them, or wish the war wasn’t happening?

I looked around me. Whoever it was writing to me, I didn’t know. But I tried saving all those birds. I did! I saved them all. Smiling gleefully, I rushed back to the castle amidst the battle. The king and queen raged at me, but I interrupted them with, “And I saved the ravens. The ones that caw horribly and cackle little babies to sleep. They’re just little creatures. They’re just birds. Please—I know I can’t bear to be royalty in this world. But please. I’m your firstborn. A—”

“Hah! I’ve seen your brothers fit for royalty since they were born.”

Cast out, I looked at my friends the ravens. They were just birds. I shook my head, waving them off. They’re just birds. I don’t have any friends. I have no one. I’ll just leave. I guess…

The ravens flew away—or something. I don’t know. I do know I’m ruling my own kingdom. My parents took one look at me, shook their fists and heads at me and then turned away, trailing tears marking their disapproval of such a child.

A kid.

One of their own.

Tears formed in my eyes. I was just disowned by my own parents.

But I took a deep breath, and looked back at that diary. I didn’t write in it. I wrote on scrolls.

I wrote true stories. Once published in leather and animal skin books, I was famous. I didn’t share my thoughts or feelings.

I strived to find out that thing or voice or whoever in my diary who wrote back to me. I didn’t. I gave up. I burned my diary. Then I had a horrific nightmare. My spouse woke me, saying they didn’t want me to get any more nightmares. I grabbed some iron tongs and snatched the diary out of the fireplace. It black as midnight and singed almost entirely, I bit my lip. What to do? I threw it in a bucket of ice I had stolen from a pilfering robber down the street. It didn’t do anything.

I shrugged my shoulders.

A raven appeared to me the next morning. It cawed. I blinked, and slowly went up to it, holding out my hand. Suddenly, an arrow attacked its head. Screaming in horror, I clutched it after diving for it, holding it like I didn’t—just didn’t—want it to die. It cawed weakly, and I shook my head, not wanting to believe it. Then I saw arrows attack us. We were at war again.

I grabbed all the ravens’ arrows, slowly taking them out of the birds’ chests, heads, stomachs and other areas, saving them all. The last thing I did before defeating the parents I once hurried up to and called Mommy and Daddy was shut my kingdom down. No person would leave, but no person would come in, either. We were on lockdown.

The ravens kept coming. They all settled around me, and when my spouse shrieked for me to come and see one night in the torchlight all around our stone castle, I stared brightly—ravens all settled around our home. It made me feel so…

I shooed all those birds away, turning to my spouse. We lived in harmony for the next fifteen years. But I saw my children grow up, get married and move to other lands, ruling with an iron fist at first and then gently caressing the heads of many children and infants, so to speak. I didn’t return to my parents’ castle—word spread they were stabbed to death by a robber and a swindler working for themselves—but I didn’t go to the funeral held for them.

My siblings visited me, saying they were dying of cancer.

I cared for them, and they got better. But their cancer killed them off. I mourned them both.

My spouse and I lived happily and harmoniously, our children growing fruitfully and successfully. One day, my children told me they were to be best guards and knights around. I believed them. I believed in them. They were my children to whom I gave their hearts’ desires.

One night, my spouse turned to me and said, “Are you doing this because your parents disowned you?”

I looked at them. I thought. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to admit I was just cherishing my children’s dreams because my own parents didn’t want me anymore one day during war. They really didn’t care about me until I was a late twenty something all because I dreaded the kingdom’s rules and regulations one day. But I built myself one of these castles. I ruled.

I answered that they were a little wrong. Mostly, I wanted to just rule in my own right.

“But what about the fact that you never wanted to become royalty no matter what?”

“I…”

“It’s true. You just don’t want to admit it. You don’t care that you take things that aren’t yours.”

“I—”

“Stop!” the scroll the guard held out to the spouse was yanked fiercely, and they held it like they were going to tear it up right there in front of me. I gasped, and they started slitting the top.

“No!” I grabbed the scroll, but they leaped out of bed after tearing the covers off them. “Give it back.”

“No. Not until you return the stolen items!”

“Fine!” I did.

“Good.”

“Now, can you hand me the scroll?”

“Only if you promise to never steal again.” The spouse opened it up. “Hey, this is just what the other author wrote. Copying!”

The spouse threw it away, it burning, the fire in my eyes, but anger raging through me. I tried tonging it out of the fire, but I growled at the spouse, the spouse having no interest in me. The other monarch left. I was alone. I shook my head, and I saw the ravens. They were all gathered in a group. A mass of them gathered, but I had no one.

I took the daughter of Waterfall whom I raised all those years ago and left, leaving my kingdom for a few days to gather more servants and guards and chambermaids. Thoughts filled my head: Why do this if I just complain? Why should I gather more people if they are just going to get fired, or burned or released from duty forever? Or run away?

I didn’t care. My reign went for twenty five years. Servants came and went, and chambermaids came and went. Guards married and died, and horses were dressed for battles and got speared or pierced with arrows, dying on the battlefields. I didn’t have much to complain about, since my orders were always kind and respectful. I reigned with a gentle hand, but it seemed the more I reigned the way I should, the more my children became bloodthirsty and disrespectful. One day, I visited all their funerals. Something happened. I don’t know what.

But I blamed myself. I blamed myself for the fact that my children and spouse deserted me.

The ravens returned, and I wrote about them. Each raven was a protagonist in one of my stories. But the ravens didn’t matter to me, as nearly as much as before. They all flew back and forth. I saved them from one battle after the next. I saved all the animals, and all the animals—

I didn’t steal them. I captured them from their dead owners. I kept them, raising them.

I looked down on my subjects. Inferior nobodies working for me! I thrashed them with whips, splitting their poor sweaty backs with the ugly leather thing, but I shook my head every time they panted for water and bothered me with their growling stomachs. I just growled back, lounging on my throne with a gold cup in my hands. I ordered their executions. All my servants had died before me. I gave one massive shrug and one massive sigh.

Why?

Where’s my spouse? Why couldn’t they stay with me?

I ordered some guards to find them. They came back, but they didn’t want to stay. I divorced this person. Then I ordered them to leave. If they didn’t care about me, fine. I’d wed someone else.

But, a guard warned, even you said no one can marry someone else without a sincere marriage promise. A divorce is evil. Stop this, or you will die one day.

The guard said he had dreams from God to annihilate me if I was hypocritical. I turned around—literally and metaphorically. I wed the person again, in my mind and in my heart. We were together, forever. For real. The ravens just landed in the cornfields and on the scarecrow. I missed my parents dearly, crying one night. I truly sought them out. Finding them nowhere, I trudged back to my castle.

My spouse said they would be with me if I captured all my enemies’ women and men to make them chambermaids, peasants, slave men and women, farm boys and girls and cowhands.

And every other servant out there. Who serves me forever.

I looked outside, and saw a world of people tasking under me. What a life.

But when I turned to my spouse, I saw a person worth living with.  

I got up, wrote something, published it for all the world to see and then burned it. Burned it for good.

My reign was respectful.

Until I died. With ravens giving my funeral, God said.