27-1 2023-09-12

Once upon a time, there was a king who was very sad. Every day, the sad king went about his duties joylessly, as if compelled to move by an invisible puppeteer. He kept his affairs in order without fault, he ensured the people were fed and entertained. The nobles and peasants alike admired him. He was a good ruler, strong yet merciful, sympathetic yet pragmatic. In all interactions, such as at royal feasts, his conduct was humble and pleasant. At such a feast, though, one might observe the sad king laughing a bit more quietly and smiling a bit more rigidly than all the nobles around him, whose drunken jests could be heard echoing throughout the castle corridors. Rich lords and merchants would prod him with drinks and games. Behind his back in too loud a whisper, they mocked his reticence and joked that he ought to find himself a woman, no shortage of whom would gladly make herself queen. Many beautiful courtesans tempted him in sweet tones and pretty dresses, only to be turned down with cold courtesy.

One time, the sad king appeared at a small tavern where tradesmen gathered nightly to drink. He traded his velvet cloak for a cotton tunic and shaved his beard so that he would not be recognized. If the men in the tavern saw through this disguise, they did not care to show it. Together they drank and ate and laughed. At sundown, these men drank with dirty paws as respite from a long days work cobbling shoes, tilling fields, and smithing tools. But by the end of the night, with gleaming faces and slurred speech, they drank their last glasses gleefully to next dawn's morning light: a brighter tomorrow that promised the same arduous labours as the previous day. The sad king joined in and found himself slapped on the back and jostled about just as if he had known these men all his life. Together, they staggered and stumbled through uneven streets, wildly singing strange songs whose lyrics they already knew. The men disappeared one-by-one into the darkness of night, retreating to their warm homes and sleeping families for restful nights until the sad king found himself, once again, all alone, with only the night sky's cold company. He made the long trek back to his own bed where he knew he would lie awake, listening to that ceaseless chatter inside his skull.

Doubtless, all the lords and nobles noticed the castellan's strange state. Although they could not understand it, why so enviable a man would be so indifferent to his gifts, they could see that something was wrong. They worried for the future of the kingdom, for they could sense well enough the degree to which the kingdom had come to depend on the king's humour. Thus, they came together and devised a great festival. From faraway lands, artisans and entertainers, wizards and quacks, suitresses and soothsayers, were invited. Whispers spread of the capital's great festival until all the kingdom had heard, all except the sad king, who observed with dismissed curiosity his acquaintances' conspicuous glances and over-friendly banter.

So it went, that on a cloudy morning, the sad king laid awake in bed listening to the gentle raindrops of an impending storm, that his tranquil was interrupted by an eruption of bugles and a crowd that cheered upon his appearance at his window. A sea of shiny-wet cloaks dotted with gleaming faces stared up at him. A band played as the portcullis was drawn and the vast crowd parted to make way for the armoured elephants and sequinned dancers. The great parade marched on through packed streets as the noise drew more and more people from their homes and into the pouring rain. The sad king watched all this with a profound mixture of emotions, one he had never felt before, or perhaps so long ago that he had forgotten. Lightning flashed across the sky and everything went quiet. Thunder struck a chord in the crowd, roared back to life. Mud-splattered children screamed and laughed as they chased and were chased through deep puddles, through the maze of packed cobblestone alleys. The sad king smiled when he saw that everybody had forgotten about him and were contented, rather, by all this festive chaos. Even the sky could not help but join in on the rumble.

Even after the rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared, after the sun had brilliantly set to red-orange hues giving way to shimmering darkness, after the fireworks had long echoed past the distant hills, after all was said and done, cheerful songs were still being sung around bonfires in every street. And when at long last these fires too had gradually burned out, the whole kingdom fell silent and the stars shone more brightly still. The sad king collapsed back into bed and closed his eyes in prayer to a deep sleep, one free of those fantasies that will never arrive, and memories that will never return. He was no longer sad, only very, very tired.

Just as he was drifting out of consciousness, he felt a cold breeze and the warm presence of another. Beside him, a familiar-looking woman he had never seen before lay on her back, staring up at the starry night sky. Seafoam grazed his feet to the ocean's age old song. Grains of golden sand flowed like water past his fingers. The woman did not look at him, but he could not help but marvel at her face whose strange features captivated him like nothing he had ever seen. She was not beautiful, she did not look anything like what others called beautiful. He felt in that moment as you might feel when you find yourself awestruck by a foreign mountain range that reminds you vaguely of a forgotten memory, whose jagged cols and peaks disappear into an infinity that you never even knew you didn't know. Is this beauty? Then surely, nobody knows what beauty really looks like.

Suddenly, she turned and looked him in the eye, "You fall in love too easily."

He was flustered at first but quickly regathered his composure.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to stare."

She did not respond.

"And I'm sorry that my friends put you up to this, you don't have to be here."

"I'm not sure what you mean, I came here myself, then you showed up. You are so full of meaningless apologies."

"Sorry, I just thought that— nevermind."

"You seem sad, what's wrong?"

"I don't know, that's the problem."

"Perhaps you should stop calling yourself the sad king."

"Hm, I didn't think about that, what should I call myself instead?"

"That's up to you, any name will do, but between the two of us, we don't need names."

"But names are useful."

"Yes, but names aren't real."

The tired king didn't know how to respond. Talking with this woman confused him. Instead he changed the subject to one that had been bothering him but that he could never find someone to talk to about. He felt like he could talk about anything with this woman, even if her answers didn't make much sense.

"Do you ever feel really, really tired—"

"That's why I'm here."

"—and that nothing you used to do or that anybody else does is enjoyable anymore—"

"Sometimes."

"—that all of life is a game, and like a little kid that's outgrown their old toys, it's just not fun anymore. It's as if you already know all the tricks and so this whole big magic show is a bore. All these tricks, like love and charity and psychadelic drugs, war and politics and changing the world, truth and faith and meditation, adrenaline and inspiration and all these meaningless words, they're all nothing but tricks. I wish I could unsee that."

"I know what you mean, have turned those words over in my own head a thousand times. How lonely it is to look around you and see everybody running around, chasing shadows as if their lives depended on it. So, you may think you know all the tricks, but you are only fooling yourself. There are no tricks, there is nothing to know. You are chasing the most elusive shadow, the shadow that promises peace that is forever unnattainable, simply because life itself is the disturbance of that peace, like ripples in the water. I know it's not easy, you are very tired, and even when you do find the energy to try, you will often be disappointed. People like you are disappointed so easily. Just because the world is not how you imagined it, just because people are not like you, do not understand you... you take every injustice, setback, and letdown as an arrow to the heart. You are a martyr, you are the greatest sufferer, you are a stranger on this cold wet rock forced to live according to a system that works for everybody but you. You regard your life to be a great tragedy wherein you have been involuntarily cast in the lead role. Perhaps that all sounds familiar to you? But you know that none of it is true, don't you? Only, you can't help but feel that it is. So you keep telling yourself this story in which you are alone. Indeed, your solitude is the greatest illusion of all, if only you could see through this one too. So please, listen to me when I say: it doesn't have to be this way."

"Why, if only they all spoke as beautifully as you. Alas, you are right, I know but do not believe that my solitude is an illusion. I know what I have to do to free myself from this myth, but I'm scared that one day I'll run out of energy. Please understand this about me, I'm not afraid to die, but I am so terribly afraid of giving up."

"You don't have to see it that way, you're not a campfire who must burn out eventually, you can choose to stay still or keep moving, to hold on or let go. What you're really afraid of is being disappointed again, but how can you be surprised if you never let yourself be?"

"I know, I know, God, I already know all that!" He took several deep breaths and closed his eyes, "I'm sorry. I'm just really, really tired."

She seemed to understand what he meant, because she decided not to say anything more. Instead, she sang him softly to sleep with a lyricless song, and then followed him into those dreams.

He dreamt that he was riding through the streets of his beloved kingdom, only, spectators lined the streets bearing hostile expressions and hurling horrible insults. He saw that he was headed for a hazy horizon. The only home he had ever known disappeared behind him. Traitor, deserter, coward, they called him. He narrowly ducked a stone thrown at his head, which struck his golden crown and knocked it to the ground. Members of the crowd lurched forth and tore at it like starved jackals. He watched every scornful face, listened to every curse in his name, all with a growing feeling of lightness. It was as if he had worn the crown as Atlas bore the heavens, and this terrible burden had been finally lifted.

Eventually, the crowd disappeared into a distant and unremembered past. He rode on, watching the changing landscape. So very gradually, houses and farmland gave way to trees and wild plains. The dirty artifacts of man's ingenuity slipped away and became irrelevant. In this world, there were clouds and forests, grasses and flowers, rolling hills and serrated mountains. Here was no ugliness, no shame, no anxiety, no envy nor guilt, desire nor ambition, not even hatred or love. Here just was. And when the sky grew dim and the air grew cold, the king and the horse stopped in a lush meadow. He laid down beneath a tree next to a crystal-clear brook. Perhaps his stomach was empty and his back was sore. If so, he did not notice. The tree and the brook together sang him to sleep with their gentle duet.

That night he dreamt of his childhood. A childhood where he learned in gruesome detail the meanings of war, famine, and infidelity. This disorienting world full of passion and apathy, he could never for the life of him understand. He had followed his father's footsteps over tattered remains of banners and body parts, watched limbs twitch to bloody mouths that begged for the mercy of death. He had hidden behind velvet curtains as starving peasants battered the castle gate, then later heard from not far enough away their agonized screams. Painful secrets he held in his heart, stolen glimpses of lust and betrayal he did not dare tell anyone except the trees. So many things seen but never spoken, the horrible things men and women did to each other without ever really knowing why. And who could he talk to about it all? Who wanted to confront pain when running from it was so much easier? Who wanted to relive all these memories better left forgotten? Who could answer him all these questions when he alone lived the life that gave rise to them? It seemed to him that no man can go on living this way, that there is a cold necessity to ignorance. And yet, ignorance is impossible to choose, for the very awareness of that choice means that it has already been made. There is nothing to be done then, I'm just doomed aren't I?

That night he dreamt of his childhood. A childhood that saw entire days spent roaming the empty castle, exploring forgotten annexes and cellars. He remembered feasts next to his father passed daydreaming to the backdrop of incomprehensible adult conversation. He remembered royal excursions across the kingdom, on which he could catch glimpses of an outside world that felt somehow more real, both threatening and irresistably enticing. He watched children with darkened faces and tattered clothes play games and laugh at each others' laughter. When he would happen to catch the stares of other children, their faces quickly grew serious and averted his gaze. That was, except for one time on a visit to an apple orchard on the outskirts of the kingdom. His father was engaged in boring conversation with the farmer and his wife. The apple growers' daughter hid behind her parents, staring at me, only she would look away and pretend to be looking at something else as soon as I stared back at her. Whether from sun or embarassment, or perhaps because God has a strange sense of humour, her cheeks were brightly red, just like the apples her parents grew. Eventually, her mother noticed my thinly-veiled boredom and insisted I go out and pick some apples for myself. I happily complied and spent half the afternoon filling myself with sweet apples picked from the same trees that gave me such cool shade to rest in. Drowsily, I drifted from tree to tree, taking just a few bites out of each fruit I picked before casting it off and finding a new one. I soon collapsed under just one such tree and fell dreamlessly asleep.

When I awoke, there was an apple-cheeked girl laying next to me, watching the clouds cross the dimly-lit sky. This time, when I looked at her, she turned her head and stared right back at me.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I stared at her stupidly for a moment before realizing she had asked me a question, the answer to which I felt suddenly embarrassed to say.

"A king, I suppose."

"You suppose? You should be sure! What you do when you grow up is a very serious matter, or so mother says."

"I am sure, now that you mention it. I want to be a king. That's what I was born to do, or so everybody says."

"That's interesting. What makes you want to be a king? "

"Hm, I haven't thought about that much."

"Is it that you want to be rich and powerful and have lots of pretty things?"

"No that's not it at all. I don't want any of that."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to help people. I want to put an end to terrible things like war and hunger. I promise that I'll never hurt anyone or be mean to them. I don't understand why my dad is always so mean, it only seems to make him sad. Some people do not like him very much. I will be different. I am going to make the kingdom good and happy, then everybody will like me."

"Why do you want everybody to like you?"

"Hm, I hadn't thought about that before."

"I like you, isn't that enough?"

I tried to say something but couldn't find the words. Instead, I produced an apple from my pocket and gave it to her.

"That's very nice of you. I think you will make a great king."

I could not explain why I could not stop staring at her.

"What about you, what do you want to be?"

"I want to be a singer."

"Why?"

"Because I like to sing."

I thought about it for a while. I concluded that this was indeed a very good reason, and that surely she would make a wonderful singer. I watched her eat the apple contentedly. And when she finished the apple, she sang us both to sleep with a sweet song about the apple king, who made the kingdom good and happy by giving everybody apples.

When the apple king awoke, he looked up to see the rustling branches of an appleless tree. He did not want everybody to like him anymore. In fact, he wished that the world would forget he ever existed. He cried for a long time, but there was nobody to hear.

There was only the horse that slept soundly next to him, the chattering little brook, and the appleless tree. But the tree listened to him, felt his pain and his joy. The tree held all this inside its trunk, and for the rest of its long, long life, it whispered to each lonely soul that stopped by the tree to rest. Lo, listen carefully to the creaking of tree's great trunk, it whispers:

To you. You who have so many regrets, hurt and been hurt so many times. You have walked a long and lonely path. And yet, you find yourself crying beneath this same tree where so many before you and so many after you will do the same. I want you to remember this, my friend, my wanderer, my dearest reader, you are not alone. So stay here a while before venturing back into the fog, let me tell you a story.