A Day In The Life Of The King

game-of-thrones-1722710__340 For those who are fans of the Game of Thrones, my condolences on presenting this work. You will need to be familiar with that series to capture the flavor of this post.

The King sat up in bed. Once more, he could see the opponents to his rule taken down by his favorite soothsayers from Weasel. They just demolished the arguments of his opponents in the court by simply saying that his opponents were namby-pamby wusses! Serves them right.

The King decided that he’d had enough time in his royal bed and went instead to his throne room. There he brought out his royal proclamation device and sent his wisdom out to his masses of adoring fans. He thought for a brief moment, “What should I say today?” Then he bent over on his throne as he strained to remove yesterday’s cheeseburgers, and it became clear to him. He proclaimed, “Best movement ever. Economy is reely going now. Only the lame-o’s who are haters can’t see it. SAD!” He dispatched this brilliant thought bubble out to the world, and prepared for his very active day of kinging.

The Queen was off again in the winter castle. She seemed to be staying down there, where the oranges were fresh, more often than not. Maybe it was all of the other noble ladies who kept harping on the King’s indiscretions that were driving the Queen away. Whatever. It did make the King’s daily life easier if he did not need to pretend to care about Queen number 3. The King idly thought about someone who preceded him as a King. Something about six wives. “At least they can’t accuse me of locking her up”, he thought as he saw the photo of the current Queen on the wall.

The King sat down to his breakfast. He was careful to make certain he got fruit with his meal. The apple Danish should suffice, he thought. Washing the pastry down with his first diet Coke of the day, he got dressed in his royal robes. He paid especial attention to his cravat, as it bore his blood red color. Making certain it extended down below his waist, he ensured it created a commanding presence. His servant held out his royal jacket, which he slid his arms through the sleeves, letting it rest loosely upon his fantastic frame. Thus armed, he strode down towards his round room, arriving just after 10.

Scarcely had he sat down when he was consumed by a desire to use the electronic raven. He picked up the voice piece and instructed his servant to contact his counterpart in the Kingdom of the Snows. When the connection was made, he spoke into the voice piece. “Vlad? I just had to let you know, it was not personal when I threw out your jousting party.” He listened for a brief period of time. “Yes, I know they had been looking forward to our tournament later this year.” Vlad apparently was making quite a point in reply, and the King pulled the voice piece away from his ear and his face assumed a grimace, before he returned the voice piece towards his mouth and ear. “I know, Vlad. You know how it is when you have to appease the court, right? If it was up to me, I’d start lopping off some heads, but my advisors have told me some bad things might happen if I did that.” Once more, he waited while Vlad continued with his side of the  discussion. Finally, the King said “I’m glad you understand. You and I, we understand each other. That’s good. I wish I could convince my advisors that it would be better if we just got along”. He hung up the phone, then sat back in his throne chair, leaning back and flexing his fingers against each other while he assumed a pleased expression.

After a brief period of reflection, he flicked on the sound box to summon his assistant. “Send in my jester.” It took a while for the jester to appear, so the King used the time wisely to practice his ball stroke, trying to coax the white ball into the hole on his green carpet he had placed atop the tapestry of power that lay on the floor of the rounded room. He heard his assistant open the door, and say “Sire, Jeff the Jester is here.”

“Good, send him in.” The King laid down his stick and went back to this throne chair behind the desk. Jeff the Jester came in, dressed not in motley but in a subtle blue suit. Only his projecting ears and small stature evinced his true nature as a member of the King’s assemblage. “Jeff, share with me something that will give me mirth,” the King commanded.

Jeff smiled as he cantered up to the desk. “Sire, we just stuck it to California. We told that libtard mayor of Oakland she was an embarrassment to the nation as she warned the alien wildings of the upcoming raids.” Jeff did a quick twirl of joy, then followed with “But what was best, I fired McCabe. I fired McCabe just two days before he was set to become a mooch off of the taxpayers by qualifying for a pension. Sire, I just wish I was around to see his face when he realized that his plans for a comfy life were in vain. I just wish.”

The King broke out into a broad rictus smile. “Jeff, I knew there was a reason why I kept you around. You really made me smile.” The King summoned his assistant. “Fetch me another diet Coke, and bring one for our Jester as well.” The King turned to Jeff. “So what will you be working on next?”

Jeff picked up the balls that were in the cup on the floor and began to attempt to juggle. Since he was an incompetent juggler, they soon were scattered all over the room. He looked back at the King. “I’m trying to come up with a way to silence the imp,” he said.

Just at the mention of the imp, the King’s expression totally changed. “Out. Out I say,” and he stood up, pointing at the door. “If you hadn’t said you had no power over the investigation, we never would have had that imp appointed. I should take you out and flay you.”

Jeff the Jester cowered as he backed away towards the door. When he reached the door, he bolted through it, knocking over the servant who bore two cans of diet Coke on a silver platter. The brown nectar fell and soaked the carpets. The King’s rage extended to his servant. “Up. Up you clumsy oaf. Go get something and clean up the mess you made.”

The King strode out of the room and went down the hall to consult with his hand. “Jared, where do we stand on getting the Palestinians to agree to peace?”

The King’s hand stood as the King entered his office. The King had begun bellowing his request while he was still in the hallway, so Jared was not certain he had heard the whole question. Through long experience, though, he knew better than to ask for clarification. Asking for more information was a sign of weakness, and would bring the wrath of the King down even on him. So he gave a non-committal response. “The Palestinians are not talking to us now. But I expect things to be better soon.”

“Hmmph” was all the King said, as he strode out of the room and went back to his round room. Once there, he summoned his assistant. “Go get me that guy with the name like a king, deals with diplomats. I need him.”

The assistant quaked while he dared to deny the King’s request. “Sire, you fired Rex a couple of weeks ago. The Senate has not confirmed his replacement. Do you wish to talk to the deputy?”

The King looked up, with a perplexed look on his face. Then, “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Ok, then, fetch me my hound. And bring me another diet Coke.”

The assistant said, “Do you mean the Mad Dog?”

“Yeah. Have him come here. I’ve a question for him.” Since it would be a while before the Minister of War made it to the office, he decided to watch his mouthpiece speak for him on Weasel. He’d had several mouthpieces since he became King. Seems like none of them could deal with the questioning throng like he wanted. But this woman, she seemed like she was better than most. The King wondered what this woman would look like in armor, since she had a frame that looked suited better to plate than to Dior. But he soon grew bored listening to the questions that kept coming, even though his mouthpiece parried each thrust away.

The Minister of War arrived in the office. He carried a folder full of illustrations should any of them be needed in order to make the King understand. The King was gracious. “Sit, sit down. How’s the wife?”

The Minister spoke, “She’s do…”

“Good, good,” the King interrupted. “Look, the reason why I called you here was that I keep hearing about these dragons that this King of Poverty has developed. I hear tell that these dragons can even reach our shores. Is that true?”

“Sire, we believe that it is possible that a dragon unleashed from their kingdom could reach our shores. They have hatched several dragons over the years.” The Minister opened his folder to show a map with dragon tracks flying across the open waters. “We’ve analyzed the potential, and here we show…..”

The King interrupted again. “I don’t care about any analyses. I use my gut to analyze. We can’t have this King of Poverty threatening us with his dragons. Why can’t we use our own dragons to neutralize him?”

The Minister was taken aback. “Sire, we would not want to unleash our own dragons, even upon our worst foes. Do you know what sort of damage a dragon would cause?”

The King snorted. “Why do we keep on breeding them if we never unleash them. I want a proposal in two days about how best to unleash our dragons on the Land of Poverty.” He waved his hand, indicating that the audience was through. The Minister of War backed out of the room, and turned to go away through the door.

The King sat back in his throne chair, and drummed his fingers atop the desk. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was already after 4 o’clock. “Not much point in getting into anything else” he thought. He summoned his assistant and said, “I’m going back up to the royal chambers for some sovereign time. Have me paged if there is a matter of great import.”

Once up in his royal chamber, he summoned his meal. Two cheeseburgers today, with fries. And two scoops of ice cream for dessert. He donned his royal bathrobe and awaited his sumptuous repast. He turned on Weasel, but they were blabbering on about some weather emergency that didn’t mention him by name, so he grew bored. He switched to another channel which was showing a story about another kingdom, one where they kept out the alien wildings by means of a 700′ wall of ice. He was tempted to use his royal proclamation device to extol the benefits of building the wall out of ice, out there in the desert. Oh, heck, why not. “Build the wall! Use ice to keep the evil alien wildings out! And it’ll create free air conditioning for the border! SMART!” His last royal proclamation went out just as he finished the last of his ice cream.

The King went to sleep fully content. He’d had many strokes of luck that day: He hadn’t been sued by one of his now forgotten flings; he hadn’t needed to face the scribes; he’d had an extra scoop of ice cream at dinner … He’d thought of a new way to build the wall and enjoyed doing it… A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy one. There were one thousand four hundred and sixty-one days like this in his term. From the first swearing in to the last turnover to his successor. One thousand four hundred and sixty-one days. The extra day was for the next leap year.

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