The King Ascends Bodily into Heaven

The King of England was awakened by his alarm clock, which believed it was six a.m., when, in fact, it was more like 5:56. The King had been meaning to get onto the Internet to find out how to set the correct time on it, for it was a very complex alarm clock, with eight buttons on it, each button being labelled with an unintelligible pictograph--but that research had not so far taken place. Perhaps this would be the day to set it right! though the King doubted it would take place, because it hadn't happened to far, and besides, what did four little minutes matter in the vast context of the ruling of His realm?

He tossed the covers aside and climbed out of bed. He stood entirely naked. Everyone stood naked on a pretty regular basis back in those days, due to advances in home heating, toilet, and hygiene, and the King was no different, though to think of such things--that the King stood with no difference from his subjects--was quite nearly a treasonous thought. Who would dare portray a Naked King of England? These were matters to be pondered, back in those days, but lightly, with a consideration that, yes, the King stood naked like the rest, but that it was not something to communicate in, say, song or the plastic arts.

The King realized he had been unconsciously prescient, if such an act is possible, to not put a mirror in his bedroom. (Yet are not all thoughts, both possible and impossible, available to a king? The Great Chain of Being, as you know, places Kings between common people and God, communicating in both directions, and thus cannot a king partake somewhat of both orders of Being? Thus, a King can think things impossible to ordinary humans.) If he had installed a mirror in his room, at some point in his past, he would perhaps have glimpsed himself in his mortal frame.

So, what if he could have seen himself? He'd be seeing someone in the first part of his seventh decade, and though his body would appear to a high degree unattractive and flabby, it was still alright-looking when he pulled in his belly. And what about hair? It was receding slowly, and changing colour slowly, but it still looked fine from a distance of, say, six feet. In any case, he wouldn't have been able to see himself at all without donning his pair of royal eyeglasses, so how did any of this mortal coil matter in the long run? Royalty can't stand to occasion. For example, one of his ancestors, Henry VIII, managed six wives, and he was a fat pig, wasn't he?

He decided then and there that he wasn't going to bother with showering that morning, because he was the King of England, and if anyone objected, they'd eventually be dungeoned. The door of his chamber was open, and one of the cats came in to look at him and meow hungrily. It was time to feet the royal felines.

He found his clothes from yesterday in a pile beside the bed, and he pulled on his underwear and his jeans then he pulled open a couple drawers to find clean socks and a clean shirt, knowing they would do nicely. Dressed as dressed as he wanted to be, he went out into the hallway and down the stairs and down more stairs to the kitchen where he saw his Royal Consort eating cheese and toast.

"Good morning, Royal Consort," he said to her.

"Good morning, King," she replied, lifting her toast in tribute.

"It looks like it's going to be a nice day."

"It's pretty clear. Weather report's not saying anything's to come until about seven tonight, when it may rain a bit."

"How British, how very, very British."

"We're not in Britain. We're in Canada, and it rains a whole lot more in England than in Canada."

"Ah, the maritime nation, my Isles. Point taken, point taken."

"Anyhoo, can you pick up some chicken thighs after work?"

"Surely! Is there anything else for me to purchase aside from hen-thigh?"

This unreasonably banal conversation went on for some time, so it's a fine point to clarify this 'Royal Consort' business. See, they were not married, nor did they have to be. When the King ascended the throne some four years before, he sent more than one email to Justin Welby, then Archbishop of Canterbury, wishing to be properly recognized, and also seeking advice. The King did not know where his common-law spouse sat in ecclesiastical terms, i.e. Did they have to marry? Since he, as King, was now head of the Anglican Church, couldn't he just throw it all off, change rules, that sort of thing? In other words, couldn't he simply declare a marriage to exist since time immemorial (since Kings were destined to be Kings since the beginning of time). Unfortunately, the emails must have been mislaid or something, or the problem as laid out must have been a thorny one, and so the King and his Royal Consort were retaining their designations as King and Royal Consort. The question went into limbo in January, when Welby resigned due to his failure to investigate John Smyth, barrister, who was known to have liked little boys a mite too much. In any case, for the time being they were 'King of England' and 'Royal Consort', and the King had printed out a decree certifying such to be the case.

The end of the conversation between King and his Royal Consort ended with these statements:

"Don't forget about the thighs!"

"I won't. I feel like some ice cream too."

"Buy Canadian!"

"Kawarthas, probably."

The King of England snapped his fingers and quickly ascended to his chamber, whereupon he grabbed his little white plastic bottle of salve. He perspired slightly, recalling how on one occasion some months before he'd had need of it during an altercation with a street thug and he'd been caught without his salve. He'd been fortunate to get out alive, but if he'd had his salve, he would have been the clear victor.

Out the door, he cried: "Later, Royal Consort! I love you!"

Unseen: "I love you too, King of England!"

The streetcar came, in good time, to the stop at Broadview and Lowther. The King climbed aboard. The vehicle was somewhat half-full; some commoners were standing even though there were seats available. The King chuckled to himself, noting their child-like innocence. He sat down beside an Asian lad who was doing some tardy homework on a small laptop. Studies were never-ending for those who sought advance in the world. He pulled out his well-worn copy of Charles I: The Betrayal, and read again the section about Charles' eldest son, a bastard born of a maid in the palace. He was nearing the literal climax when he noticed he was at his work-stop, so he closed up his book and sidled through his fellow passengers to get alit from the streetcar.

The word 'routine' has been easily applied to the King of England's habits, and this day was no different. He crossed King Street and got a large black cup of coffee from Second Cup. He saw the time on the card-operated mercantile touch-screen, and he realized he would be getting to work about ten minutes early, only a block away.

The King took his time getting from Second Cup to the Corporation, noting as he went past the shouty daycare centre, the mobile outside the hotel, and the Windsor Power Transformer Station, the faces and postures of his subjects. He observed the females. Since it was before nine in the morning and since women look their best before nine in the morning, he approved of them. Why shouldn't the women inhabiting his kingdom look pretty? To the King, the creation of beauty, or at least the patronage of beautiful things and their creators, was tantamount. The King of England looked at his female subject's skirts, and he thought platonically of the generations of his people who would emerge some day from under those skirts.

Ah.

The King went into the corporation, north entrance, Wellington Street. Posters on either side adverted radio or television programs, and they were all back-lit. He slotted hid staff card through a turnstile, and got to an elevator.

In the elevator, he had to, again, use his staff card to get to the floor he wanted to go to, which, in his case, was 2.

The King of England walked into the section of the second floor which, through a ribald turn of linguistics, was called by all and sundry 'BJ'. However, he seemed to be the only one who got the joke.

When you live in a corporation, you progressively move, outside to inside, through a logarithm of familiarity. He started surrounded and passing by a variety of unfamiliar faces and postures. Did they even work there? Were the from out of town, visitors like, eager to see new things? Or perhaps they were friends, new hires, old hires. Sometimes the King was amazed by the multitude of his realm. All these people, and never time to meet them all. A sad situation, but great power requires a certain ruthlessness. That's what censuses are for. Some of his ancestors, he was certain, were the authors of the Domesday Book, and maybe some time after the Archbishop of Canterbury finally got back to him, he would do the same thing, down to the last spoon in his realm. He didn't foresee it as being that difficult. All everyone would have to do is ... count spoons. Who can't count spoons?

Where was he? He was sitting down in front of his computer, which he switched on. His own start-up tune began: Zadok the Priest, in a stripped-down electronic rendering. It was a jolly tune. He wondered what was on the schedule. Then he brought up his calendar, and saw a meeting planned for 9:30, which didn't give him much time to check his Correspondence. "There is a meeting at 9:30," he said aloud. Buzz Kent looked over the flimsy plastic wall separating them to say: "I heard a rumour, but since I don't want it to be true, I'm not going to repeat it." "Maybe some promotions are involved!" said the King. "That's not what I heard." "Well, we'll see. I am the one who is more often than not correct about such matters."

At 9:30 they all turned their attention to their boss's boss's boss whose name the King couldn't recall. "Everyone come in a bit closer. This won't take long." The King stood and approached his subject the boss's boss's boss. The King looked around. There were some eighty people in the room, and some were trembling like little fools. What could be the matter? Surely some re-arrangement was in store, and the king was excited to be there to hear about it.

The man--yes, Davies was his name--began with a preface. "Good morning. I hope everyone is fine and healthy today, so far, because I have some bad news. Pretty bad news, not only for some of you, but for a lot of folks dependent on us. We're in a crisis. I'm sure some of you know that already, scuttlebutt gets around. We've had to reorganize the whole place, top to bottom, in an effort to save at least some people from the worst of it. Why am I addressing you? It's because management is being re-arranged too, top to bottom, bottom to top. Your boss is no longer with us, and your boss's boss has been let go too. A lot of difficult decisions were made, and so we've spread the pain around the whole place. And, I'm afraid, some of you are being let go. When you return to your desks and check your email, some of you will find letters from me and my team. Instructions will be there, along with links to grief counselling and the griefance--I mean grievance--process. I wish the best of luck to you all during these tough times, those who are staying, and those who are going. All right, let's get back to work."

Davies clapped his hands primly, and left the area.

The King looked around at all his subjects and fellow workers. He spotted a few he was hoping would be leaving and gave them an inner chuckle. People started to drift away. The King went back to desk. Buzz Kent, behind him, said: "So the rumours were true. Oh my God, I have no savings. How will I get through?"

The King replied: "There's always a soft landing from places like these. You'll be fine."

"What, you think I'm one of them who's getting the axe?"

"I mean nothing, my child. Let what will be, be. It's in the hands of the Great Chain of Being now."

They sat down in their cubicles, where they couldn't see one another. The King thought that perhaps Buzz had taken his statement harshly, and his conscience tugged at him. He knew he would be apologizing, when the moment seemed apt.

The King shook around his mouse and noticed there was a new message. Thinking it had to do with the re-arrangement, he opened it, and read the first line: We are sorry to tell you that your employment has come to an end.

Surely, there had to have been a mistake. Perhaps Buzz sent it thirty seconds ago, in retaliation. However, the email looked legitimate. It told him he would have to depart the premises that day, after his small exit interview with Don Davies, Acting Departmental Head, which was scheduled for 10:25. The email gave him the location to go to for the interview.

Still thinking it had to be some kind of a gag, the King, over the barrier, to Buzz, said: "Any interesting emails in the last couple minutes?"

Buzz, unseen, replied: "Nope. I don't see anything. Maybe I'm okay."

The King said: "Yeah, same old, same old."

He watched the clock on his screen as it ticked down to 10:20. He stood up and stretched and said: "I have to go to some kind of internal meeting with one of the higher-ups now."

Buzz looked up. Was his look real? Buzz said: "Good luck."

The King shook his head, left the area, pressed a button for an elevator, and got on. He scanned his card--which still worked--and ascended to the eighth floor. He knew the number of the room he was looking for, so he followed the handy arrows to the proper door. The door was slightly ajar, but he knocked anyway. Barging in was not his noble style.

"Come in, Mr., ah, Smith."

The King pushed open the door to see a room he had never seen before which happened to be on a floor he barely knew existed. The room was a nice pastel blue, and the window opposite looked out to the C.N. Tower. The King felt a spurt of pride that his kingdom could afford such nice things. If only his father had known that he himself had been a king! but he had no time for nostalgia.

Don Davies stood up and extended his hand. "Mr. John Smith, hello. I'm sorry we have to meet under such circumstances, but it's an odd world, now isn't it. Please, have a seat so we can discuss." Davies peeked at his watch as the King sat down opposite.

Davies said: "I'm sorry if I'm pressed for time, but you are being laid off. However, it's not as bad as all that, because after the restructuring is over--the house-cleaning, so to speak--we may in fact want to re-hire you. Frankly, I have my own boss, who has his own boss, and upward for about six more levels, I believe. Thus, I want to get an idea of you, and I want to take notes. How does that sound?"

The king glanced out the window in an attempt to subtly signify the meeting was of little concern to him. He said: "That sounds fine to me."

"Okay, so, what can you tell me about yourself, your history, your time here?"

The King sighed. "Well, to start off properly, I am King of England, and of this country, too."

Davies looked at him with surprise and recognition. "Ah, so you're the one, are you?"

"I don't understand what you're getting at, Davies."

"I'd heard we had the King of England working here, so I'm glad to finally make your acquaintance, your majesty."

The King settled in some comfort. "I try not to spread it around too much."

"Oh, right you are, it's not for everyone's ears." Davies leaned back in his ergonomic chair built of all-natural materials. "But, and help me out here, don't we have one already? Called, um, Charles III?"

"Charles is a very distant cousin of mine. He doesn't even know he's an usurper."

"A what?"

"An usurper. I don't hold it against him in the least. I am a proper Stuart, he is not. We may even be someday friends. It would be just like the king of Scotland becoming king of England. I am, of course, a descendant of James."

Davies drummed his fingers on his desk. "By the way, how do you know any of this?"

"It was a family rumour, and I decided to do some of my own researching. All told, it took two years. Then, in a dream, I saw all my precedent kings, including my father, marching before me, a solid twenty of them, and that's how I knew I was on the right track. I even have a certificate from Oxford."

"Which Oxford?"

The King fidgeted. "You know, the big one, somewhere in Britain. Surely you've heard of it."

"I've heard of it. I was a scholar there."

"Ah. You are aware. I apologize for my faux pas."

"There are Oxfords all over the place."

"Are there?"

Davies glanced at his watch. "I suppose, your highness, that I have all the information I need."

"Please keep what I've told you under your toupee. I have foreign enemies watching my every move."

"I understand."

"Namely, the French and the Spaniards. The armada never stopped!"

"That sounds sensible to me. Anyway, pack up your things and go. We have your personal details, and we'll be contacting you in the upcoming days about severance pay and so on."

The King nodded meekly, and walked out of the office. The hallway, as seen from his angle, the angle of departing-never-to-return, seemed almost peaceful to him. He felt invisible as he went to the elevator and down and back to his desk and Buzz was there and Buzz noticed him.

Buzz whispered: "Rumour is you were one of the unlucky ones."

The King said, in a normal tone of voice: "Things would be worse. I'm ambivalent about it. I can put more efforts into my researches, as I see it. So, not a bad outcome."

Someone had put onto his desk a Bankers Box; he didn't ask Buzz who. The King gathered up his personal documents, and the little leather beaver he'd had for almost fifty years, and the commemorative plate of Elizabeth II, his eleventh cousin eight times removed, and the pens he knew were his. He pulled open his metal drawer, saw nothing of his own, and slammed it, catching his right pinkie on a sharp edge. "Ow!" he cried. All except for Buzz ignored him, who said: "That must hurt!" The King looked at his now-bleeding pinkie and said: "Just think, an hour ago I could have gotten workman's comp." He smiled, closed up the box, and crossed the open-concept office without looking back.

On the elevator, a woman the King didn't think he'd ever seen before said: "You're bleeding." He looked down, and yes, the side of the box was rather smeared with blood. He smiled at her and said: "I'll take care of it." The elevator doors opened, and he went ahead of the presumptuous woman, and got outside into the morning air of Toronto City.

The King was suddenly free. He could wander around all day. He could even pretend to still have a job, like a guy in a Japanese movie, who lost his job but couldn't tell his family, who pretended to go to work everyday, but then the King remembered the whole matter turned out to be a tragedy, and there are way too many tragedies already about kings. In any case, it didn't have to go quite that far. Perhaps he should go into a café and see what people without jobs do on fair mornings. He looked at his right pinkie, though, bleeding against the Bankers Box, and he figured he should go home and tell himself some sad stories.

No-one on the streetcar knew the King's plight. They were all staring at their phones anyway, and besides, they probably didn't care much about royalty in their day-to-day lives. He remembered being unconcerned about such matters himself until one night long before he'd uncovered the secret information about his lineage. But now? and here? No, there was no-one to praise or worship him like a god. They were all playing games.

The King checked out his pinkie, which was still bleeding freely. A bit of dirt from the box was in the blood, and he wondered if he could get some kind of infection from it. He wiped his pinkie on his shirt, which turned out to be a bad idea, since he wound up looking like he'd been shot. Oh well, he thought, sometimes you just have to his rock-bottom before you can start your second wind, or however the phraseology went.

The King got back to his streetcar stop, which hadn't much changed in two hours. He walked along his usual way, wondering if he'd ever be walking that way again. After all, if he got another position, he might have to head into an entirely different direction. The box was starting to get heavy to him, and he could feel the pressure on his pinkie. On a hunch, he turned around to look at the sidewalk behind him and there sat the odd red dot. He returned to his walk, knowing he should get it under some cold water as soon as he got home. Aside from that, he wasn't in possession of any ideas. Walking and walking were his employment for that time, and there wasn't anything else.

The King had to unlock the door; it seemed the Royal Consort was out, yes, of course, she still had her job at the aquarium. Funny he'd forgotten.... He'd have to tend to his wound himself.

The King put the box down; his hand was rather bloody. What could people have thought? He went down to the basement rubbing his hands together to move the blood around a bit because he figured that was what he was supposed to do. In the water-closet, he turned on the cold water even though it would eventually made cleaning things up more difficult. In any case, job one was to stop the bleeding. He put his pinkie under the tap and the water flowed over it, splashing bits of blood over the porcelain if porcelain it in fact was. The place was a rental, and he didn't know the specifications. It could have been artificial porcelain for all he knew.

About three minutes later, the King took his pinkie away from the downpouring what to examine it. It was still becoming encrimsoned, and he could now tell it was a rather deep gash he had there. He looked away when he thought he saw it cut to the bone.

With his eyes closed, the King took a small yellow towel and wrapped his whole right hand in it and held it from within. Then, with his other hand, he proceeded to wash the spilled blood down the sink. Then he noticed there was blood on the floor too, so he bent down and sopped it up with another towel. He was ruining all the towels, but he didn't have much choice. Bending down made him a bit dizzy, but he didn't know if there was any connection to his blood loss. Maybe there was, and maybe there wasn't.

The King left the washroom and noticed there was blood leading into it, a trail of blood he followed backwards, to the front door, and he sopped up what he could see. He undoubtedly missed some spots, but they were so small he didn't know if they were visible, and he only cared about visibility. A King has to appear dignified, and no more than dignified. The dizziness wasn't going away, so once he'd made it to the front door, he felt like having a little lie-down on the couch.

The Bankers Box of his memorabilia was still where he'd left it; he had to do something about it; it was guaranteed to have blood dripping off it, too.

That could all wait, the box and the possibly-visible blood. The King went into the living room and lay down on the couch. He waited for the dizziness to go away, and it did, a little bit. Now that he was better, he decided to check his email, so, with some difficulty--the towel was getting redder and redder--he reached for his mobile phone to see if he could make it work with only one hand for button-pressing. (He managed all right, but there was a lot of back-spacing.)

The King tried his company email first, but the system wouldn't let him in; he had been de-activated. And golly he had some interesting things, in there among the messages, but he wouldn't be able to return to them until he was rightfully re-hired, which could be as much as a week away. If he could remember from whom he got all those cat photographs, he would be able to recreate his email, but he was sure that would be impossible, since cat photographs are all over every system. He would just have to wait until he was re-hired; that wouldn't be long, he was certain.

The King looked into his personal email. He clicked out the latest messages which were all from companies, but then he found one that looked interesting. The emailer, apparently, was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The acting Archbishop, or his assistant, or at least the person who was running the church business since the resignation of Welby, apologized that the Anglican Church had failed to get back to him. (Things get mislaid in paperwork when there's a heinous scandal, you see.) However, the agent of the church told him that, yes, they'd gone through their ancient records and consulted with eminent medievalists and everyone connected to the issue was relatively certain that the modest correspondent was, in fact, the rightful King of the United Kingdom, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. The proof would lie in a genetic test, through blood, of course. The blood test had to be done in London, England.

The King, who was now almost certainly the true king of all those places, even the ones he'd never heard of, looked at the red towel wrapping his hand and felt like some enormous joke had been played upon him by the fates or by Fate, whichever one you preferred. Would he have any blood left to test by then? He looked a little beyond his hand and noticed he'd gotten blood on the couch, which was now his newest problem. He'd have to clean it out as soon as possible, once he regained some strength.

After about fifteen minutes, the King managed to get up and off the couch to survey the damage. Redness started in a cloud-shaped smear near the edge, then trickled down in a couple lines all the way to the floor. Since it was still moist, he figured it wouldn't be impossible to get out. He went down into the basement, to find some rags. He had to make the effort, certainly, and then a little more effort once he figured out how to completely clean it. He wouldn't be able to entirely clean it, that was for sure. Still, the goodwill effort had to be made. He managed to find some old rags and he filled their red bucket with hot water and Mr. Clean then dropped the rags in. With his surviving hand he carried the bucket back up the stairs, pausing once to get his head straight.

The King knelt at the couch, took a rag from the bucket, squeezed it awkwardly against the side of the bucket, and gently applied it to the bloodstain. The rag got all bloody, so he squeezed it out into the Mr. Clean which immediately became Mr. Bloody. He couldn't see if he was making any progress at all, and his head was starting to hurt. Every time he tried to remove some blood it seemed the more blood got onto the couch. He had an idea to smear blood all over the couch and pretend it had been red when they'd purchased it, but he didn't think he'd get away with it.

The King pondered the red bucket with the red inside it, a fine mix of Mr. Clean and his possibly royal blood, and he thought that was a shame. The blood he was losing was the key to his vindication, and he thought would be amusing to see when the email from Canterbury had arrived and compare it to when he'd sliced his pinkie so efficiently. There couldn't have been more than an hour between the two events, and he found that ... ironic, is that the word? He wasn't quite thinking straight. The bucket of blood had to be disposed of, so he managed to get to his feet and carry it down the stairs and as he did so he noted the stairs had a pretty decent amount of blood on them too, but he was too preoccupied to be too horrified.

The King tipped the bucket into the toilet using the edge of the bowl as a fulcrum and though this was a clever and necessary action it did not prevent the blood from sloshing all over the place and even onto the inside of the seat (which he'd raised in preparation for the big expenditure). He tossed the bucket into the bathtub and the bloody Mr. Clean splashed against the white porcelain of the bath. He noted the new mess and planned to take care of it in due time. His work was piling up, but he knew he had four or five hours to get it done, which was plenty of time for sure.

The King got the toilet almost clean until he realized he'd be inevitably dumping more blood into it. The couch was the priority. He turned on the bath tap and got the bucket under it and then the bucket was almost clean again. His head felt a couple feet higher than it was. He turned the tap to shower and sprayed down the blood on the white porcelain and the tub looked almost clean again. He was doing things in the wrong order. He took the bucket from the bathtub and poured Mr. Clean into it then he picked up the bucket and left the bathroom, looking back to see that he'd done almost nothing. Blood was everywhere. But it wasn't his priority. The couch, right, was his priority.

The King slipped a little on the stairs, with little pools of royal blood, blessed by God, underfoot. He managed to kneel down at the couch, looked at the blood-soaked towel wrapping his hand, and took a rag to the couch once again. The blood had soaked in, maybe to the wood underneath the upholstery, but he scrubbed away, and he soon had another bucket of blood on his hands. It was like he wasn't to get it done after all, and as he spread the stain further and further away from where the stain had originally been, he tried to be positive and he imagined laughing about the whole thing some time in the near future. He spread the stain further and further, thinking about telling the tale to his aides or assistants or whatever courtiers he would have soon, and they would laugh generously at the idea of royal blood being spill'd so ... generously.

The King checked the time again and figured he still had plenty of it for the clean-up. I mean, how long could it take? And also, I mean, he was still bleeding plenteously, so there would have to be a second big clean-up to do. He got to his feet. He was covered in blood from the waist down. His pants were sticky against his legs and also against his royal jewels. He sat down on the couch, which made a squishy and spongy sound. His phone was on the table, its screen bloodied over. He wiped it on his shirt, awoke it, and read the details of the message again. He should reply, he thought. The message from Canterbury was still there, so he hit the reply button and, with a plentiful use of backspaces and auto-correct, managed to type out how please he was to hear the news and that he'd be off to London as soon as possible. Then he wrote a question about where to go, but he had trouble with the question. His brain and his hand weren't working right. He put the phone down again. The phone slipped around on the table's bloody surface, nearly fell off, in fact, but it didn't. The King figured there was time for a little rest for a second time. I can leave everything as it is for now, and I'll lie down on this couch.

The King lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. He could hear the steady drip of blood leaving his pinkie, sometimes even a splash as pockets of red liquid made their way out of the towel. He didn't want to look, and that's why he closed his eyes. He opened them again, out of force of habit, and looked to his right. The pronounced redness of the room made his weak head spin. A great pool of blood covered almost the entire floor, and, as he looked, the pool reached the far wall. There were deep parts, and there were shallow parts, but the entire floor he'd painted red.

The King fell to ruminating. He was the King, and he had been perfectly right after all. Soon he'd, he'd be off to London for his Coronation, and he hoped there'd be nothing wrong with putting Handel over some loudspeakers. Or, heck, he could hire a chamber orchestra for it. Now wouldn't that be special? A choir would be required too, yes. Then there'd be a dance of some kind, and he'd dance with whomever he pleased. Maybe Jessica Chastain would accept an invitation. He saw it all happening, in a fuzzy kind of way, fuzzy because even in his mind's eye everything was fuzzy. He had to write a reply, or he had to hit 'reply', he wasn't sure. He had to do it.

The King pulled himself up into a sitting position and his feet went into some four inches of blood, up to his ankles and further. Fortunately, his cellphone was still on the table, a good foot-and-a-half over the pool. He got it into his hands, but he couldn't make out what it was up to. Did he only have to hit send? How did these things work anyway? He couldn't figure it out, no matter how hard he looked at its screen. Why wasn't it plugged in? Didn't it have to be plugged in to work? He looked around for the wires that connected the thing to electricity or the phone line or some such. Buzz must be wondering where he was. He said his goodbyes, and then he was on a streetcar, and then he was home.

The King's blood was filling the house. Considering the levels of things, he figured the basement was full of blood, except for some air pockets. Why did they have such sealed windows down there? If that hadn't been the case, the blood would have had somewhere to go. He couldn't put down his phone anymore, because the blood had risen above the table. He was waist-deep in royal blood, and the level was rising about two inches a minute. He got up, dizzy, but found it too difficult to move through the blood that was all around him. He should have sought higher ground; the stairs weren't very far from where he was; but he couldn't master the effort. The bloodline rose and rose, and soon it was over his head. He wasn't buoyant, so he couldn't get to the surface.

His spouse, his 'Royal Consort', arrived home a couple hours later. She took off her shoes and went into the living room, where everything was precisely how she'd left it in the morning. She decided to go about her business, expecting the 'King; to arrive at any moment. She went down to the kitchen and started preparing a meal. She had it all in a pre-stove condition, but held off until the 'King' arrived. Let him have his illusions, she thought. There's really not much harm in a little delusion, after all.

A half-hour later, and he still hadn't arrived. Now she was starting to get slightly worried. Surely it was all in her mind. She put the food into the oven and expected him to clatter through the door. The timer went off, so she opened the oven door and turned off the heat. Maybe something had happened to him. She went upstairs and sat down on the couch, waiting. She noticed the King's phone on the table, but didn't think much of it, since he couldn't remember to take it with him some days and he was never the worser for it. And, so, she waited. She turned on the television news in case there was some information she could use. She didn't find anything. It was an ordinary day; so ordinary, in fact, that in a couple of years everyone forgot it had ever happened.