Okay! Well I've been slacking again and haven't gotten that much done for at least a month.
I've lost some inspiration, but I'm currently on a 'short writing schedule' to get me back into shape. I'm going to start writing short bits and poetry in order to 'get me going.' I wrote this short story very late last night:
At certain times in life, the surroundings are too interesting to ignore, but everything is too fast and you are too weary; causing it all to become a blur. A blur of moving color and sounds occurring in rapid succession around you, as if you’re surrounded by a strange net of water, and everything else is outside of it—and occasionally a single person or object will break the water for a split second, and you notice them.
It’s times like these that force you to think, assuming you have nothing of particular importance to do which would affect the outside world, which is usually true when you lay on your deathbed.
He had requested to be helped into comfortable, loose, robes—quite untraditional, but he concluded it was senseless to be dressed in armor before death; what would the point be of appearing valiant in the afterlife? And, he joked, spending the rest of eternity in soft fabrics was much more appealing than spending it in metal plates.
He laid on the soft red velvet cushions, and stared quietly at the ceiling, letting the anxious people surrounding him walk about and chatter. Without a word to anyone but his own heart and soul, he recounted the things he’d done in his life.
He was raised in the castle, heir to the throne, as a single child. At only seven years of age, he saved the castle’s nurse from death, by beheading a small asp with a kitchen knife (he was forever proud of this feat). He had found love at the age of twelve, and married at fourteen. He was blessed with a daughter and two sons from his wife. By this time, he had done such things as giving food and gold to the particularly poverished citizens of his land. He had handled trade well, and made good decisions on what would be imported.
Overall, he decided, he was at least a good ruler, even if he was not quite an excellent one.
This having been decided, he sighed and rolled back his shoulders.
“My King?”
He looked up. His faithful messenger and chronicler was standing very close, with his bag of precious books and scrolls slung over his shoulder.
“My King..?”
“… Yes, what is it?”
“Would you like anything?” The messenger shifted anxiously. “At all? Food, water? Ice—do you have a horrid headache? I will retrieve anything you wish to have…”
“No, old goose, I need nothing, but I give my immense thanks for being loyal to me,” the king said, a sincere smile on his soft face.
The messenger nodded, and spoke softer this time. “I will find anything you ask me to.”
“I know you will. Relax for me. You deserve a quiet peace.”
The messenger nodded, and, hesitating, left the king’s presence.
And the king had nothing of importance to think of—he refused to let the negative queries find their way into his mind and worry him to an uncomfortable death; there was no questioning of ‘have I done enough?’ or ‘have I made the world happy?’. He knew he had tried his best, at least, and he thought he did well.
He inhaled deeply, and exhaled in the same manner, but in a slow way.
He sunk his head a little deeper into the cushioning, and slowly, closed his eyes.
