A dark ring of water around a darker and deeper tree. Was the water blood?
A bar, wooden on black rock, professional and clean, a well dressed bar tender.
My attractive prom date at my arm.
I really had no business with this girl, I was not a normie, she was easily too beautiful for me.
Tall, shapely, blonde, happy, I guess I was lucky.
She smiled at me and we sat down and I ordered drinks for us.
She leaned in to me and we chatted, mostly about how odd and empty this watering hole was.
Water ran under the bar-stools, the entire bar was under an ancient and weepy tree that sat in the middle of a circular patch of grass, which itself was surrounded by a shallow moat of running water.
Mosses and grasses grew in the small muddy stream.
The only flickering orange light came from the bar itself. The rest of the world was an oppressive and impeding darkness.
My partner and I were dressed nicely, like we belonged to some youthful party and endeavored to enjoy ourselves.
A hole opened up at the base of the tree and one after another small diminutive hooded figures emerged from the hole.
Shy guys? The seven dwarves? Demons from hell?
My date giggled as one introduced themselves to her.
One tapped me on the leg,
I turned to look.
“Keep an eye on your girl.” it said.
Odd, what a little gremlin...
I looked back at my girl.
Sure enough she was gone. Replaced with a grotesque and crude manikin. Made of paper mache and mud and twigs. Complete with makeup.
For every natural beauty my date had possessed, this doll possessed a mockery.
The little gremlins began to laugh.
I stood up and looked around.
My feet were suddenly wet.
My girl was nowhere to be found.
“Don’t worry, nothing has changed!!” a whiny hooded voice…
“Dance! Dance with your girl!”
The manikin was a puppet controlled by the little figures. It popped up and curtsied crudely, for me as if we were about to dance. Or perhaps dexterously, it was being controlled by but three gremlins. They were doing a good job.
I willingly grabbed it’s arm, hoping to feel the warmth of my date.
No luck.
“Good Good!” said one of the gremlins.
“Now kiss her,”
The manikin leaned in for a kiss.
I smelled the makeup,
“No” I managed.
I heard the sound of a A knife being was drawn.
The laughter grew to a roar.
I looked down at my own hand and saw I had crushed my drink. Blood and glass and whatever I was drinking fell from my hand.
_________________________________________________________________________________
I woke, examined the board, black knight to D seven, I would trade the quartermaster if he was threatened, but he already knew that. Which was a bishop attacking a bishop at E seven, he was going to be killed by the enemy queen, probably, who would be mostly stuck behind pawns.
Moreover, I had played a game exactly like this before. Some old chess club in junior high… but unlike a game in junior high.
“One mistake and I will be haunted for the rest of my life.” Was that a doubting voice in my mind?
I would be moving my own queen sometime soon
Chess was a game designed to make the players feel stupid.
I wanted the enemy queen dead for I knew queens were the killers in chess.
“I’m sorry for being boring last night O king! But I really was curious about the state of the realm.” there was my queen, curled up on my bed, watching me stand undressed over the chessboard.
A few bits of parchment scattered at the foot of the bed. Her face, traditionally beautiful but somehow wrong looked up at me cheerfully.
“O lion, will you feast today?” she asked.
I realized I was finally achy, and this body of mine was always starving. The Lion of White would grow fat when he turned thirty if I was not mistaken.
I had killed a man, but then I was a king, it was my business to do so.
Many people speak of great emotion coming with the slaughter of things.
Truth be told I feel guilty killing groundhogs, not men. And perhaps that’s because I had hunted one with a bow and arrow as a child.
I had to kill it with a rock and I had felt bad watching it run with an arrow in it’s neck.
My man kill had been clean, he died of a punctured brain when he tumbled from his horse.
Will I feast today?
My stomach growled at the thought.
“O lion, go eat! The maids will take care of you today!” My queen begged me.
I should ask her how she is doing…
“My queen you have been busy already today?”
Purgatory?
Purgatory. Something was absolutely wrong.
I looked at my little wife and her angular uncanny face.
She wasn’t answering.
She was looking into my own eyes with a sad concern. As if I was an old dog she was sorry to put down.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Are you sad?” She asked.
“Of course! I want to live a long peaceful productive life.”
“Without adventure?” She was incredulous.
“Of course I like adventure but we can’t have any until this silly war is over.”
“Why not?”
I looked back into her eyes. Unsure if this was some advanced interrogation technique.
What did she want me to reveal?
“Because it’s war… When do I go to crush our enemies?”
The queen laughed as if I had told a joke. “Nonsense O King the maids are waiting for you!”
I looked at my queen for a hint of deception.
She was trying hard to seem earnest, how was I supposed to read this simple mind of hers? What did she have planned?
“What are you planning O Dove of my Heart? That I should relax all day?”
What would be the most narcissistic thing she could do here?
“That you relax and recover and keep your healthy strong warrior’s body and spirit. A realm is only as healthy as it’s king!”
Ok maybe Game of Thrones and Hollywood had scared me too much for this whole royalty thing.
“You got me my queen I’m starving is the feast getting cold?”
“Yes yes!” She said, “I will see you when you are full and glad to be king!” and she grabbed her white staff and blinked away. leaving me in my wizard robe pajamas with the little kings crosses embroidered across them.
I supposed the maids wouldn’t mind. But that wasn’t what worried me, my little wife worried me.
The wizard robe that was soft, fluffy, cozy, warm, not itchy like my armor. All the good stuff.
Why would a wife tell her husband other women would take care of him? Was this a king thing? As naive as this queen was, seemed… surely… this was nonsense.
I entered the dining hall to greet the annoying and flirty maid who always managed to smile too aggressively at me.
Her blonde hair and makeuped face soured my appetite.
I don’t hate blondes, but I find red painted cheeks and lips overstimulating. And not in a good way. It reminds me of my old great aunts, not of the clearly intended youth and vitality.
“We’ve been keeping the food warm! What would you like first?”
“Breakfast!” I answered.
She laughed, was that nervousness I detected?
“Potatoes? Apples? Grapes? Pork? Eggs? Nuts?” I offered as examples. I wasn’t really craving meat right now. But I always craved protein and sugars, in both this life and the last. Probably the next as well.
I began to list off a variety of things I might crave.
“Of course!” She hurried. “Your wish is our command!” she bowed as well as a variety of other pretty maids, all revealing a little more skin than they had in the last few days.
Harrumph, I am as the bull in the ring, and there wouldn’t be a ring if I wasn’t going to get stabbed. So my neurosis said.
A litany of cute young maids burst forth from the direction of the kitchen.
But then again you can get stabbed without a ring made specifically for you.
A plate of nuts and cheeses, small berries and grapes, very fancy. I had missed the blueberry in my requests, but here it was anyway.
Chopped apples, caramel apples, raw apples, apple pie.
Bacon, pulled pork, fresh pork chop. An entire pig.
Mashed potatoes, Shepard's pie, hash browns, baked potatoes.
I was hungry so my mind didn’t ask what potatoes were doing in pre-columbian Switzerland.
But caramel apples gave me an idea…