The Witness

[This story contains themes of physical violence, gore, and innuendos regarding self-harm.]

“Bring in the Witness!” The caller yelled on behalf of the king. His highness sat at his throne with his cup of mountain water.

“Yes, the Witness!” A noblewoman yelled.

“Tell us the tale again!” One knight mocked.

The Witness was slapped to come around, dragged up, and marched by the heels of the king’s men. He shook his head to and fro to knock off his morning sickness from the wine and mud he’d sucked the night before.

This will be good, he thought. A turkey leg and perhaps a pie.

His mouth watered as he dreamed, while his feet dragged on the sullied bricks below. 

Oh, yes—tonight at the behest of his majesty, the Witness would feast, if he obeyed like a dog and did his deed. The other witnesses would have to settle for their regurgitated filth, digested and mashed so none could choke. They’d keep their jips fastened: the small iron coffins that kept their teeth from biting off their tongues. 

“Witness!” The king bellowed as his dinner guests waited in anticipation. “Stand unchained and humor us with the tails of my victory!” 

The Witness faced the brick floor, then with breath, raised his head and began the night’s entertainment. 

“My king! My tale should be no surprise to you! Your great victory is told to every child across the land!”

The king ordered wine for the Witness, as much as he desired.

“Well, my king, I digress! Why not speak of the tale once more!” 

The guests cheered and dashed their mugs of drink in the air.

“If my memory serves, it was a spring morning. All were asleep except the bluebirds and our farmers’ newborn sheep. Baaing and chirping greeted our ears as each of my former neighbors awakened from slumber. Our weekend had been full of cheer, drink, song, and dance.”

“Boo!” The dinner guests began yelling.

“Alright, alright! Your complaints are heard!” The room softened, and the Witness continued. “I believe it was the boy, Benjamin son of Hedgaard, who saw the first sign of war. ‘Over on the hill,’ he wailed. ‘I see a knight on horseback.’ But it wasn’t one knight he saw!”

The king spoke up, “It was a whole regiment!” 

The room laughed in hysterics. 

“My king, yes it was! I could hear my fellow townsmen gasping! I heard the priests and nuns curse in fear!”

“Get to the first blow!” The king demanded.

“Well you should know, king! It was your son’s own sword which brought the first death upon my village! It was Benjamin himself, our warning boy, struck once, straight through by your son, Ballmor.”

“The boy was halved!” The king laughed.

“The boys!” Ballmor chimed in. “For then there were two!”

Once again, the room spun with hoots and howls.

“He may have been the first,” the Witness said, “but many would follow suit. The banker ran out with his coins, beheaded instantly by a knight on horseback. Wilma Sutton and her five children, cut down in three blows. Our tailors three, stabbed like meat and carrots on a stick. Eyah! And the teachers! Eyah! And the blacksmiths, who fought back with their red iron poles, blocked, pushed, stuck down! Eyah, Eyah!” 

The Witness threw in his theatrics as well, dipping and dodging with each story of attack. 

“Protesters of the village had been slaughtered!”

The Witness shucked his cup in the air. 

“Blood was spilled like wine!”

The Witness poured no more than a few sips of the crimson-rich drink onto the polished floor for added flair. The crowd roared.

“And finally,” the Witness said, readying for the great finish, “the great king took up a stone twice his size!”

“Three times!” The king chortled.

“Perhaps four, your highness! This very stone!” The Witness said, moseying up the steps, tipsy from his drink. 

Next to the throne was the great rock the king had lifted at battle’s end. It was not as heavy as it looked, but the Witness took great care to pretend to lift it, as if it were the heaviest of all stones. 

“My lords! I can’t imagine three men lifting it, not at all our great king, but that’s what I did see! Above his head he took the rock and stood above my beloved governor. The man who had been accused of cheating the king of coin and wheat. And what did our king say, but, ‘You’ve deprived me of pleasure and meal, I will deprive you of breath!’ And DOWN did the stone come!”

“I mashed his brains in quite well!” The kings voice thundered as he raised his chalice high.

“I saw it with my own eyes!” The Witness agreed. “The boulder met the head of our governor. My shoes still reveal stains!”

“And Witness, after plundering your town, how did you appear in my court?” The king asked.

“Sadly, I am in debt for my role in our misdeed. My family wasn’t spared your wrath. Your knight’s swords ran through my wife, Lydia, and my three daughters.”

The crowd did not applaud this but stood with heads down. 

The king pushed himself into a stand, “It’s with a heavy heart, Witness. But no town is above the king.”

“Yes, my lord. But with grace, you’ve spared me, and since have kept me from self harm.”

The king smiled as though pleased. “Yes, Witness. Your village is gone, but your tale does speak of a relevant message. It’s a lesson, and lives will be saved from those who heed the moral.”

“And so, with a heavy heart, my king, I retreat back to my humble chambers. I thank thee and thy many guests, and bid you all a good night.” 

The Witness was marched back into his chambers. One of his majesty’s men threw a turkey leg to him, but only after his iron mouth guard had been inserted, its flat ends unable to mash even the softest of meats. His chains were tight, dangled just loose enough that one couldn’t cause themselves harm. Even painstaking measures were sought to ensure the stone walls of the chamber could not damage the head nor any bones, their ridges softened by cloth shields.

The Witnesses, all 23 holding a somber tale of battle, had lost every living loved one and friend, but would be kept alive for decades. All so the king could revel in his victories of old.

The Witness had been forced time and time again to relive the horror—the king and his men taking the lives of every man, woman, and child in his village, all due to a simple mistake. Their tribute bearer’s wagon had been robbed by a rogue traveler enroute to the castle. The king mistook the error as a hostile uprising. That was that. 

Unlike most nights, the Witness didn’t cry, for he knew he’d see his family soon. He had a plan. With all his might he worked for his strength. He pulled on his chains adorned to the wall, and hoisted himself in the air, again and again, to fifty. He rested and did so again. His work carried on through the night, his mind fueled his mission.

“Soon,” he grunted, “there will be no more meat from another’s stomach.”

“Soon,” he spat, “I will eat meat, gravy, and spirits with my beloved!” 

“SOON,” he gnarled, “I will judge evil, and those who never wept for my loss will weep for their own!”

“Shut up!” A guard yelled. 

“Apologies!” The Witness called back, snarling quietly under his breath, “Weep, you morose swine. Let me serve my justice to you.”

The Witness was called in 7 weeks later. By now, his strength had grown. Again, the king gave him wine, although the Witness had none this time around.

“Shall I tell the tale of your great victory?” The Witness said.

“Of course, Witness, or shall you feast on vomit another night?”

“No, your majesty! I’m quite well to speak to your delight!”

The Witness began the tale again. He ducked, parried, lunged and slashed, recounting the knight’s obliteration of his village. He described, in gory detail, the creative fates the king’s men had brought upon the town's innocent citizens. Children lost to merciless strikes. Men left broken and unrecognizable. Wives and daughters suffering grievous wounds, left to gasp their last breaths on the streets. Servants collapsing on the roads after relentless attacks. 

But this time, the story had a different ending. The Witness would not fight back tears. He welcomed the conclusion. 

“The governor, who had been so good to my family,” the Witness continued, “shook in fright as he saw your majesty’s boots head towards him. He saw the rock you lifted and held above him!”

“Three times my size!” The king belted out.

“This very rock!” The Witness commanded, stumbling on cue up the steps to the rock sitting by the throne. “This rock, right next to you!” 

Then, summoning the strength of all of those who were murdered by the evil king, he hoisted the rock in the air. His strength served its purpose well.

“THIS VERY ROCK!” He shouted. 

With the room in a drunken stupor, this was his time for revenge! Just before he could bring the boulder down on the king’s head, he heard a cry from the back of the hall. 

“Stop! STOP!” The voice cried. “You don’t understand!”

But the Witness paid no heed.

While staring at the king, he screamed, “You’ve deprived me of Lydia, and of Jenna, Lissa, and Yorra! I will deprive you of breath! May you burn in hell!” 

And with that, the Witness, in all his might, brought down the stone upon the king's head—his own eyes crazed in the same stupor the king had worn in the wake of his family's slaughter. 

The room was still and quiet. Panting hard, the witness, now covered in royal blood, stared out onto the bewildered crowd. 

“Cut, cut, cut!” Yelled a man. 

Suddenly, a flood of men and women poured into the room.

“Eddie! Ed, put the rock down!” Yelled a man in white and black. 

The Witness stared and held the rock firmly. 

“Ed, listen! This isn’t real, man—none of it! Oh my lord!” The man cried. 

Another man in a blue coat with black pants yelled out, “You killed Duncan, Ed! Why the hell did you do that!” 

A man in a long white coat raced towards the Witness. “Look at me, Eddie. Look!” He demanded, waving a gold chain to and fro. 

The Witness stood watching the chain swing and found himself seeing his world out of focus. His vision flickered—four stone walls and high-glass windows with a view that could see for miles, then shifting between a vast open wall and a blinding expanse of green beyond the glass.

“Good,” the man in white said, “Get tired, Eddie. Nice and sleepy.”

The Witness finally shook himself from the trance, his motives remembered and fueled, then turning his gaze to Ballmor the “king’s” son. 

“Your father paid his price,” the Witness sneered. 

“He’s not my father, Eddie, please!" Ballmor pleaded. "You know me, Ed—we're friends!"

But down came the rock on Ballmor’s head, twice this time. The Witness screamed in pain from his own loss. He threw the stone against the wall which easily tore through the set. 

Abruptly, a group of men ran up the royal table and tackled the Witness, one of them striking him repeatedly until his eyes swelled shut. The crowd fell silent as a sharp, sickening crack echoed through the studio.

Still not dead, he squinted to see who had brought him down.

“Eddie! What did you do? What the hell?” A man in a black and white suit cried. “Ed, you killed them!” 

The Witness murmured, “I what?” 

“They’re dead, Eddie. Damn it. This whole show is gone, Ed. It’s gone.”

“Show?” The Witness sputtered. 

“Damn it, Ed. You wanted this. You made it! You wanted to be hypnotized. This is your baby, man!” 

“My babies are gone,” the Witness gritted, coughing up blood as his head pounded furiously. 

“No, your idea, your show! The Storyteller, Eddie. None of this is real! None of it! You’re not some medieval servant—hell, you eat steak every night after shooting! This is a show, it’s fake, it’s not real! You wanted this!” 

“I’ve avenged them,” the Witness stammered, slowly closing his eyes. 

“Guys, get the doctor in here, now! There’s no threat! Eddie, don’t close your eyes, you had no idea! Eddie!” 

But the sound dulled away into oblivion as the great actor, Eddie Bankwood, bled out and faded into Hollywood history. 

The man who murdered his co-actors live on tv. 

His hit show, The Storyteller, as it was called, starred a hypnotized man who supposedly wouldn’t hurt a fly—an innocent but willing player in an experimental production. 

Unbeknownst to even himself in his final moments, poor Eddie had just filmed his final, infamous episode.