Clouding the Future was first published in the Wicked Young Writer Awards Anthology 2016, after being awarded the runner-up prize in the Gregory Maguire Award for Fiction: 18-25 Category. The story was also longlisted in Brilliant Flash Fiction's 'Springtime 2016' competition.
Clouding the Future
It’s hypnotising, I suppose that’s why I stuck with cigars – the way the smoke so carelessly shifts and fills the empty space. I get lost in it, the knowledge that I’m producing such spectral beauty – it wouldn’t exist without my breath. Even while the world collapses around me, as people get caught up in creating whirlwinds with their words. There I am. Lost in my own mist, having sailed into the eye of the storm.
My reign is over, they say. My foreign bank accounts will tide me over, but I have to leave now. I say nothing. It all washes over me, they’ll come and I’ll die – that’s all there is to it. There will be no dramatic conclusion, no trial or mercy, they have grown tired of me and so I must pay for my crimes – it’s only fair. I shan’t allow myself to be the victim of some zealotry assassin in five years time. This is it. It ends here.
The smoke almost covers the revolutionaries through the window, like a fine shroud, a cowl over the future. It’s so easy for them to judge me. They starved while I feasted. I danced at balls while they fought each other for pittance. I slept while they cried. How could I have ever understood their suffering, when I had everything I could ever desire? There, that was my mistake. Empathy. I’ve never possessed it.
“Your Majesty,” a voice pulls me from my world and back into the realm of the waking. “We have to leave now!”
I say nothing.
“They’re in the palace grounds!” The man paces and points madly at the window. “If we don’t leave now there’ll never be another chance!”
“So be it,” I reply, listlessly…
The man stands tall, upright – as though my words have pierced through his soul. He is taken by surprise, annoyed, and baffled all at once. “You want to die here?”
“If that is what my people want for me.”
“You’ve never given a damn what they’ve wanted before!” he shouts, rushing over to my seat as though he were going to thrust a knife into my heart.
“Hence why I must die.” I rise and push the man gently away.
I do not even know this creature, doubtless one of the many governors who has been employed in my stead – one of the few loyalists who have yet to bid a hasty retreat without me. Most fled the moment the tide turned against me, I would have done the same in their position. I cannot understand why anyone would want to stand by my side, the only thing they stand to gain is a date with Death – and He never forgets a soul.
There’s a sudden crash outside, quickly followed by the deafening cacophony of a thousand voices shouting in unison. I see the blood drain from my companion’s face as it dawns on him what they’re chanting. They bay for everybody’s blood – not just my own.
“Go…” I whisper softly under my breath.
I do not turn to see the man leave, but I hear his shoes slap against the marble floor on his way out. Not a minute later, I hear my helicopter fly overhead and now know that there is no other means of escape. I am alone in my palace, save for my Royal Guard, ruling over an empire of shadows and ash.
I walk over to the window and feel my cigar almost weightless in my hand – its comforting warmth becoming dying embers. For now, though, the future is still misty – still shrouded in smoke – and ash stains my marble underfoot. I begin to wish I could disperse like the smoke, too. Evaporate into the air and escape my fate. I know I cannot. History will remember me for many things, but cowardice shall not be among them. I will be noble in the face of death – I have to reclaim something at the end.
I take one final inhalation of my cigar and then let it drop limply to my side, as the cries of my people grow too loud to even think anymore. Then I see the cigar has run out, I gaze down as its last breath of life is finally extinguished – nothing left to cover the window into my future. Now judgment is at hand, they flood into my palace as my guards abandon their posts. Nothing left to hide the future – let them come…
My reign is over, they say. My foreign bank accounts will tide me over, but I have to leave now. I say nothing. It all washes over me, they’ll come and I’ll die – that’s all there is to it. There will be no dramatic conclusion, no trial or mercy, they have grown tired of me and so I must pay for my crimes – it’s only fair. I shan’t allow myself to be the victim of some zealotry assassin in five years time. This is it. It ends here.
The smoke almost covers the revolutionaries through the window, like a fine shroud, a cowl over the future. It’s so easy for them to judge me. They starved while I feasted. I danced at balls while they fought each other for pittance. I slept while they cried. How could I have ever understood their suffering, when I had everything I could ever desire? There, that was my mistake. Empathy. I’ve never possessed it.
“Your Majesty,” a voice pulls me from my world and back into the realm of the waking. “We have to leave now!”
I say nothing.
“They’re in the palace grounds!” The man paces and points madly at the window. “If we don’t leave now there’ll never be another chance!”
“So be it,” I reply, listlessly…
The man stands tall, upright – as though my words have pierced through his soul. He is taken by surprise, annoyed, and baffled all at once. “You want to die here?”
“If that is what my people want for me.”
“You’ve never given a damn what they’ve wanted before!” he shouts, rushing over to my seat as though he were going to thrust a knife into my heart.
“Hence why I must die.” I rise and push the man gently away.
I do not even know this creature, doubtless one of the many governors who has been employed in my stead – one of the few loyalists who have yet to bid a hasty retreat without me. Most fled the moment the tide turned against me, I would have done the same in their position. I cannot understand why anyone would want to stand by my side, the only thing they stand to gain is a date with Death – and He never forgets a soul.
There’s a sudden crash outside, quickly followed by the deafening cacophony of a thousand voices shouting in unison. I see the blood drain from my companion’s face as it dawns on him what they’re chanting. They bay for everybody’s blood – not just my own.
“Go…” I whisper softly under my breath.
I do not turn to see the man leave, but I hear his shoes slap against the marble floor on his way out. Not a minute later, I hear my helicopter fly overhead and now know that there is no other means of escape. I am alone in my palace, save for my Royal Guard, ruling over an empire of shadows and ash.
I walk over to the window and feel my cigar almost weightless in my hand – its comforting warmth becoming dying embers. For now, though, the future is still misty – still shrouded in smoke – and ash stains my marble underfoot. I begin to wish I could disperse like the smoke, too. Evaporate into the air and escape my fate. I know I cannot. History will remember me for many things, but cowardice shall not be among them. I will be noble in the face of death – I have to reclaim something at the end.
I take one final inhalation of my cigar and then let it drop limply to my side, as the cries of my people grow too loud to even think anymore. Then I see the cigar has run out, I gaze down as its last breath of life is finally extinguished – nothing left to cover the window into my future. Now judgment is at hand, they flood into my palace as my guards abandon their posts. Nothing left to hide the future – let them come…
