King Bungle sits atop a rickety, rented throne, dispensing caustic non-wisdom to no-one. Vituperatively venting venomous vitriol toward an unsuspecting and unaware public. Basking in the frigid waters of contempt and judgment. Dispensing disapproval while desperately demanding to be worshipped by those deemed unworthy.
Worship me, oh flawed and foolish farm-trough feeders, give me my fifteen minutes to prove what I’ve always known: that I’m infinitely better than you, and I promise to despise you forever.
Deity of the damned, monarch of the middling, and a moral mendicant. Begging for worship and pilfering pennies from a paupered populace. Give me everything I loathe you for, everything you know you can never have; look up to me looking down, and in return, I’ll never lie to you about the disgust you foster in me.
Scourge of the land. Scorch the earth and raze the temples; rape the willing and pillage the villages. Ride to victory after victory on the backs of the sullied, those poor, blind, unfortunate souls so necessary to every grand endeavor of great people. Invaluable fodder, en masse, yet individually valueless.
Please give so the best of us can take, and the only thanks you get is an anonymous death. Your pending failures and insurmountable shortcomings following you to a grave only a nameless few will ever acknowledge.
King Bungle, you’re a terrible man.
I know, but somehow I’ve grown strangely comfortable with that. And what may seem terrible to you isn’t so bad to me. I suppose it all depends on which side of the castle walls one lays one’s head down at night. Now begone, truth-teller, before I keep you on as an adviser, to dispense wisdom and honesty while I run unapologetically roughshod over the unwashed horde.
On second thought, don’t go anywhere; I need you.
What kind of sovereign abuses the very beings on whom they rely for their lordship?
Well, my trusted adviser, all of them. It’s in the fine print of their DNA. But one must not question such things, lest one bring attention to the facts and waken the sheep. So keep this on the down-low, will you?
But why must this cycle continue? asks a bewildered personal adviser. Forced into the position by his honest naivete and complete lack of ruthless ambition. Confronted by an answer unexpected.
Dear Counsel, I’m a prisoner of my own design, trapped in this prison by demons commissioned to corrupt my soul. All the toxicity I fling at the worms of the world is but an expression of my own self-loathing. I hate them because I hate myself, and I know that as lowly and repugnant a tarnished soul am I, they’re worse. And they’re worth less. And they’re worthless. And that’s why I hate them. They’re already crawling along at the bottom and need no demons to keep them from flying.
Alone in the bare and hauntingly haunted throne-room of his head. A dull and dusty chandelier hangs from the ceiling of his sanity, home to dim, flickering lights that buzz through the night. And the flies that buzz around the buzzing lights all night dance an erratic, aerial ballet in the musty murk of clouded judgment and return his thoughts to flight. And how he might break out of this place forever.
Break out of familiar misery and into the world as the king of nothing, the ruler of nobody, and leader of only oneself. Begin from nothing and build something new and different.
Start packing only what’s essential for survival, and only that which can be easily carried while fleeing. Escape will not be easy, but it’ll be unexpected. It’s been a while since the last one. Surprise is the greatest asset in this push for freedom.
And it was.
King Bungle catching his lifelong captors napping as he strolls through the keep that’s kept him from becoming his best he. Nobody the wiser as he simply walks through the gates with his meagre belongings, away from this prison that’s held him for so long, and into the excitement of the unfamiliar.
It’s not the first escape, though, and probably won’t be the last.
Reach the forest just as the horns sound.
The king has escaped!
Running as fast as possible into the dark woods, towards a feeling that drove him as a boy to become something that the somebody he once was would be proud of.
"I will not disappoint you, little dreaming me," he says, "because I know that once upon a time you lived every breath to create the me who now strives to live up to your expectations."
'O'er the ramparts and into the night. Tonight is for flight, tomorrow I fight. Smash the captors who held a titan in chains when they learned of this child who dared believe in himself when he had every reason to do just the opposite.
Oh Bungle, oh Bungle, what will you do? With no poisonous influences poisoning you? You can never again lay off the responsibility of your own failures on anything or anyone else, ever. Can you deal with that?
Hiding in the pale shadows of thin excuses is for weak men. The lazy fall prey to distractions engineered to keep them looking left when nothing is right, and motivation never fills the hearts of the lazy. So piss off with your doubts and fears, ‘cuz I already have enough of my own. And for now, I must wander, not ponder.
Off into a lonely world goes the mad king, to try his hand at building a new empire. Free from the pestilential parasites who’d previously imprisoned him. Or as close to free as anyone can be from the demons in their head.
One must remain eternally vigilant against attack. It can, and will, come in the weakest hours, like the first attacks on a dreaming child many years ago. The demons have lost their prisoner and there will be hell to pay. The preferred currency for such payments is signed with the blood of wayward souls. But not mine. Not this time.
King Bungle, all the best to you in this new adventure. Even though we’re all alone in this world, remember that whatever you can manage to accomplish before you breathe your last may inspire somebody, somewhere, to keep going. Because you did.