The Day of the Gracious

Warning: brief mention of death

A stranger was walking the streets of the market.

The young man meandered idly about, his head held high and his nose wrinkled. Occasionally, his bejeweled hands would reach into a nearby basket, selecting a fruit and inspecting it before tossing it back.

The vendors watched with hateful eyes, not daring to protest.

After all, today was the Day of the Gracious.

Every seven months, the reigning monarch would come to inspect the markets and homes of the men and women he or she ruled. Perhaps ‘inspect’ would be too generous a word, at least for the current king. In all likelihood, he would toss out a few random compliments, a disgusted frown adorning his youthful face. If he spotted a woman he liked, or was feeling especially gracious (because, even on the Day of the Gracious, a powerful, wealthy man still had to restrain himself) he might extend an invitation.

Otherwise, he would return to his mansion as swiftly as possible and not be seen for another seven months.

Today, however, would have quite a different outcome. Though only a few saw it, (the old seer, in her crumbling hut, was muttering gleefully to herself, like someone watching a reality TV show) workers of fate were putting together a nice show for the people of the kingdom. 

**********

As the king wandered the streets aimlessly, something caught his eye. A group of women his age, perhaps younger, were gallivanting about, laughing and seemingly showing off their beauty. The king, oblivious to the workers of fate cackling above him, smiled. Leaving his guards and such behind, he trailed slowly behind the gaggle of girls. 

He didn’t notice that the women seemed to be leading him farther and farther away from the marketplace, down to the darker depths of the kingdom. He didn’t realize that it was foolish to think that he was sly enough to not have been noticed yet by them. He didn’t even wonder what they might be laughing so heartily about. 

Slowly, like a lamb to the slaughter, the king was guided into what one might call the stomach of a city: dark, damp, and filled with vile things. It was natural that such a pretty thing as those girls would soon enough merely… slip away.

It was like being broken out of a spell, when those young ladies turned a corner and disappeared. The imprudent king finally noticed the harshness of his environment. Cold and shadowed, the place he found himself in was quite unlike the place he had come from. And that place he had come from… Well, let’s simply say he had no chance of finding his way back.

A feeling was rising in the back of the man’s throat, one he had never felt before. Seeing the mold on the ruined houses, hearing the groaning of starving men, women, and children he had never even known existed sent a shiver down his spine. 

Fear might have been an accurate word to describe that emotion the king was feeling, yes. 

And gradually, it was as if a small bubble that had previously protected his heart was bursting and falling away, like bubbles always do.

After a very long time of standing very still, panic began to set into his bones, urging them to be rid of this place he had suddenly found himself in. He set one foot in front of the other, though he knew not where he was going. Soon, he was rounding the corner of a crumbling building, and another, and another. 

But every turn lead to a somehow darker place, until the king was well aware he was going in the wrong direction. The very, very wrong direction.

He was only just turning back, when a voice wheezed behind him: “Your majesty…? How very… How pleasant… what a glorious surprise…”

The king stood in the cave of his own mounting horror. He could not bring himself to face the creature that had spoken in such a sickly manner.

“My king… My generous king… would you spare…?”

“Spare what, beggar?” The king spoke in his most kingly, superior voice, though his heart was quaking. “Speak what you want and be gone!”

“Your lordship is so… so kind… to grace me with his smooth- lovely- words. I wish only for… a coin or two.”

“I haven’t any coins for you, old fool! And you shan’t have any rings off my own fingers, if that is what you ask of me next!” He replied, his back still turned. A bit of the tremor entered into his voice now.

There was no sound but that of the man wheezing. Unable to stand it any longer, the king rushed away.

A foul bile was surfacing in his mouth.

********

Still, he was lost. The path he had thought would lead him back to safety had only misdirected him once more. He was beginning to understand that it was all some cruel joke that was being played upon him. He shuddered at the thought. And he shuddered once more when he saw, in the distance, a woman who was kneeling in the dirt, holding out crumbs of food to children who practically ate out of her filthy hands.

Before the king could escape, her eyes were somehow pulled upwards. The widened in surprise, and her mouth became slack as she saw the young man, in all his splendor and finery.

Shame crashing into his chest like an acidic wave, he turned and fled, a beaten dog.

*********

There is no hope for me now, the king finally realized. I am to wander this endless hell forever.

Oh, not quite, the workers of fate whispered gleefully to themselves. Just one more, shall we? 

His once golden sandals were now scuffed and coated in a layer of dust. His once glittering crown now hung dully from his hand. His once prideful heart now wore humiliation like a heavy coat. 

Foolish, ignorant, moron.

Blind, heartless, scoundrel.

With these words buried deep in his soul, the king put one foot in front of the other. He knew they would take him nowhere, but he did so anyway. The beat of his ridicule kept him moving.

Fool, step, moron, step, worthless, step, scoundrel-

He stopped. At his feet was a gray-haired man. A man with dull, staring eyes. A man with his limbs limp. A man who neither watched nor spoke nor begged nor did anything.

A man who no longer lived.

The king fell to his knees, unable to stand, and he wept.

And so the show ended.

*********

The king was never found. Certainly, days later a fellow carrying a crown and wearing rubies and diamonds on his finger was found and carted back off to the palace, but this was no king.

A king carries with him more than a crown.

He carries pride.

And this empty, sad man had not a drop of it.