Royal Audience

The room was dressed in velvet. Red soft walls made me feel like I’d been swallowed instead of granted a royal audience. I stood at the end of the ornate gold table and looked down the length of it through the shining loops of polished candelabras. Even the plates were shining metal.

There were no guests. Only the king at the end of the table focusing on me slowly. His ring finger twitched with an insectile gesture and I heard the rustling of cloth behind me. My escorts bowed and slowly pulled the massive doors shut with the thud of a tomb. The ambient noise was turned off with the click of the lock.

I could hear the king breathe.

I was scared. I’d been sent for. People who were sent for usually didn’t end up coming back to their homes. Once in a while, someone who was sent for would be seen again in a far off country with an eye patch or something. Seen by a brother’s wife’s son’s best friend while drunk at a tavern in the dark. The reports were dubious at best.

I was clinging to those half remembered myths now with a desperate hope. Perhaps I was going to go on a secret mission for the kingdom. I scraped the inside of my own skull for any details about me that might make me an ideal candidate for stealth and espionage.

I came up empty.

I may have whimpered. I was tying my own hat in knots with both my hands. I was respectfully looking down at the gold and red tiled floor in what I realized was quickly becoming terror.

My only comfort was that I was single and I would not leave a starving wife or children to fend for themselves if I was to never come back.

“Janus McGee-Tranion.” The king stated. I jumped with a yelp. He was standing right beside me and I hadn’t heard him traverse the distance. His wide staring eyes pinned me where I was standing. It took me a while to realize that he was saying words.

“Wh-wh-what?” I stammered? The name meant nothing to me.

“Janus McGee-Tranion. You have been called here to serve your kingdom.” The king went on.

My name was William Tayl.

“That is not my name, sir.” I said to him. I immediately looked at the quivering toes of my shoes again. I knew that my brains splattering onto them would be the last thing I saw.

The king paused. His hand was halfway to my shoulder.

“Hm.” He mused. There was a moment of very unsettling candor as his unfathomable eyes scanned my very being from top to bottom and found what he was looking for. “Yes. I suppose you’re not. GUARDS!” he boomed out.

The doors re-opened. The general who had arrested was there in between the escorts.

“You may go William. Be of good cheer. I’m sure your family is missing you.” The king said with a dismissive wave of his hand. I did not correct him on my marital status.

I turned to leave. I struggled to not run.

“James! Excellent job. Do stay.” Said the king. He beckoned with an expansive sweep of his arm and the sheriff took a step forward. I looked up at him as I passed and I could see he was sweating.

The door closed behind me with the endless half-life kind of echo that marks the end of someone’s life. The emotionless guards kept time with my steps as we walked down the hall to the exit.

I might have heard a muffled scream.


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Hit man

He wasn’t the only hit man I ever met with a sense of humour but he was the funniest. Whenever he was going to kill a mark, he said that he was “going to a meeting”.

He dressed immaculately in black suits and crisp white shirts. Walking down the street in the financial district, he blended in like a tiger’s stripes in tall grass. He looked exactly the same as all the other businessmen.

He had this absent smile on his face at all times. His head nodded to an imperceptible beat. He laughed easily and often. The whole gig just tickled him.

Something was broken inside of him. I’d never once seen him twitch with something that could have been called remorse or reflection. He drank a lot but never seemed to get drunk.

They pulled him out of the river last week. I’ll always miss his eccentricity. The new guy that they hired as his replacement always stares. He thinks he’s hardcore. He speaks softly and it feels like an intrusion to ask him to repeat himself.

He has no style and I don’t trust him. He’s going to fuck up a job one day and I hope it’s not a job that I’m on.



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