Story Ideas

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty

TED Talk style.

'Hello everybody! Thank you for coming here to listen to me. My name is #### ####, but I'm better know as "Crown Prince's obsession", "Luckiest girl on Earth" or any other title you have seen in the media. Today I'm going to tell you all about the very incident that left me living in hiding and fearing for the last 4 years. Just a warning. The Royal Family of #### has already publicly spoken about the incident and their son's mental problems, so I am allowed to talk about it as well. I'm not going to discuss about the Crown Prince's mental state, but instead give you a rundown of the day when everything started and what followed after. I'm fully aware that the Prince in question acts as if he is simply in love in front of the crowd and a lot of people support him. But I'm on his psychologist's side that believes he has Obsessive Love Disorder or a similar illness.

So. Translating. It was and still is my dream job, my passion. By the age of 18 I was already working at a small company and had already translated some heavy books. Two months before the incident I got the call from my manager. Now, has anyone here met a person who you just clicked with? As if you have been best friends from diapers, destiny friends? We were like that. At the start of the conversation we bantered, joked around like usual. Talked about our plans, what kind of books we planned to take on. Then he turned serious and said to me "Don't freak out, but I have a massive job for you". Now, usually, the "massive jobs" meant translating something like Stephen King's "Black Tower" series or "The Inheritance Cycle" by Christophero Paolini. So, I was prepared to hear just that. What I actually heard thrown me out of my shoes. My manager said "The President of your home country #### wants you to translate in the private meeting with #### country's Royal Family. Are you up for the job?" My mind just went blank. Me, a 22 year old who was still in university, translating in an international meeting. Holy shit! My response was just that. Like a normal person, I started to freak out. Why would my home country's president want me to translate. I was clearly not prepared professionally. My translation focus were fantasy and history not politics and economy. Why would he need a live translator when earphones were given with live feed translation. Why would the president think I was trustworthy? My manager was dumbfounded as well, he actually asked the person who called him. All he got was evasive response that president was old fashioned, didn't like technology, something along those lines. As suspicious as it was, I still agreed. Perhaps The President read one of my translated books and liked the way I weaved the words? Or maybe because I was fluent in ####? I pressed my manager for information I needed. Meet up place, time, when and where the meeting was going to take place. My email address was sent to the higher-ups in order for me to get questions and answers that I should expect and could prepare accordingly. It seemed that they really wanted me for the job. So, I got the email, I spent all my time preparing my vocabulary in #### language, pulling countless all nighters. This was my first and last super job and I wanted it to be done perfectly.

Fast forward to the day of the incident. I was taken from my house, I had the honour of meeting The President, we chatted, flew to ####. Everything took place in the Royal Palace. After all the public handshaking, photographing, anthems and questions, we were moved deeper inside the palace. We were given an hour to take a breather and then the private meeting would start. 20 minutes before the meeting. Me, The President and ####'s Prime Minister were standing not far away where the meeting was going to take place and just having a casual chat. Then suddenly, far in the distance we heard a commotion, shouting. Now, we were standing at the end of this massive corridor. It was beautiful. The entire palace was magnificent. What made the place even more amazing to me were the people that worked and actually lived there. Like in medieval times, there were maids and butlers running around, cleaning and keeping the palace clean, guards were stationed by almost every entrance. Its was like stepping inside a fairy tale for me. The corridor where we were standing was in North wing, white marble floor, to your right columns line every 4-6 meters with vases or armour standing in between. To the left, entire wall was just windows reaching from top to bottom, draped in see through curtains. I can't stress enough on how beautiful that place was.