Optimistically Cynical: A Short Story Compilation- 1

GOOD KING

The sands of time have run down to the last granules and the bed upon which I lay, shall be the one to see the end of my existence. My eyes grow heavy and my body weak.

It as at this, my moment of great weakness, that they come. Their sneering snickering faces, all looking at me. I wonder if they be the faces of men, or if they be the faces of ghosts. I simply do not know.

"Good king," I hear one of them speak, as he draws near. "Good king, how are you today? Is your belly full? Are your sheets pressed? Was the wine sweet? After all, we wish nothing but the best, for the man who stands amongst us, traitor to all."

I rise and lay upon an elbow, so as to get a better look. I know that voice and I know the man who is in possession of it.

"Is that you my friend?" I enquire. "I had heard that you had been exiled, how come you are now in my presence?"

He draws near. "I had heard that you lay dying," he enlightens me. "So I had to brave all the cruelties that our enemy could contrive, just so I could see it for myself."

I feel disenhearted. "Must you now speak to me in such away as I lay like this?" I entreat him.

"In this way, or any other," he returns. "I will speak to you and see you for what you are."

"And what am I?" I implore.

"A traitor!" he snaps with a viciousness that explodes in an instant and is gone the next.

"Traitor," I state the word, bereft of any malice. "Traitor to whom?"

"To the cause," he rails on. "To the people who believed in you and I would say most assuredly, to yourself."

"Myself," I counter, simply. "You condemn me for not laying upon your cross and dying. For not fulfilling things to the degree, which you would have liked. But tell me, what was my compulsion to do so? Why did it need to be me?"

"Because you were our leader! You were our hero! You stood for something!" he erupts. "But when it mattered most you denied your duty and shirked your responsibility."

"My responsibility. My duty. My hero-ship," the words fall from my lips. "You seem to have all the blame fitted neatly upon my shoulders. Tell me, why was this burden my due?"

"Because we needed you to lead us," he insists.

"Lead you?" I query. "Against what?"

"Against the enemy," he rails on.

"And who is the enemy?" I press.

"You know as well as I," he insists.

"But let us say I do not," I try to steer the conversation. "Now, tell me, who the enemy is."

"Those who would stand in the way of our progress," he lays out the points of his argument. "And tell us, the new generation, that we are to walk in the ruts set by those that came before us."

I take a moment to mull over what was spoken. "You say I was to be the martyr," I proceed. "But not because you believed me better qualified, but so long as I was the one, you would not be."

My friend says nothing.

"I was no greater than any of you," I state the truth. "I merely spoke first, but it is not for the generations that precede to tell the future what it is to do. You must find your proper way and no man can tell you just what that is."

"You needed blood and you were unwilling to shed your own," I offer a bit of a rebuke. "Yes, I did at one point teach as strongly and radically as you, but I saw the price of my conviction and I was afraid. I could not go forward."

"Perhaps you would have fared better, but I knew I could not," I admit. "I am too much a slave to my own flesh to allow myself to pay so heavy a price. I am sorry for misleading you, but it was after all, you who followed me."

"You feel cheated because I did not lead you to the land of milk and honey," I further my position. "I did not raise my hands and open up for you the gates of nirvana, but I could not. No man can offer another man paradise."

My long winded speech leaves me out of breath and I find myself unable to fill my lungs. My eyes start to close, even though I try to fixate on my visitor. And the last thought on my mind is whether they would open again.