20 | Psychopomp Magazine
little king story
In the distance of memory there lives a very small king. He repeats the same stories over and over, on a small stage, but the stories change slightly, imperceptibly, each time they are told. The little king begins again. He does not know if he has an audience; he can’t see into the blackness beyond the lights.
the story of eating the king
We had thought eating the king would be more pleasant. This eating is in fact a labor of great pain and goes on through the night. We have employed the use of the bone saw. We have scooped the eyes. We have stripped the tendons from around the knees and ankles, and we have pulled whole veins from the arms and legs. We have broken the feet. We have spread the ribs. We have cut the penis, and we have pulled out the intestines. His spirit, however, remains elusive. It seems to have escaped before the knife. We have flayed the tiny muscles of the hands. We have hooked the spinal cord from within the vertebrae. A flock of birds gathers for scraps. We continue.
the king’s coda
The king turns to wave back at us from across the river. We are in a different place. We sit with the body, realizing its slow passage through our own bodies. The king calls out, but we hear only the gurgle of the river, the soft touch of leaf against leaf in the evening breeze. ♦