There was a little king. A very little king. A king so little that in normal times he ought to have been a prince, but there had been an accident and an operation and a funeral and somewhere in the chaos his princedom had been amputated and buried.
So there he was. On the throne. And while he was there things were brought to him. Treaties and proclamations and promises and threats and pleasantries and all the colours of the paperwork rainbow (which is beige) passed under his nose and he even signed some of it, when he had to.
He could spell his own name, almost.
But that gets tiring, and a little king’s attention span is no longer than a little prince’s. So now and then, and again, and again, he would dismiss his business and cancel his court and call in the storyteller he knew from his youngest years.
The little king would wave his hand, like this.
Then she’d cough, and cough, and say “once upon a time…”
The hall filled with wolves, and bears, and wizards, and dragons. Princes, too.
And everything would be happy again.
The years wore.
They tore down the mountains inch by inch; they threw up the trees and chopped them to stumps; they ripped the wool off sheep and sewed it back on again. And that’s to say nothing of the weather.
But they beat in vain against the little king. For although they took his youngest teeth – and one of his elder ones, to an unfortunate peach-pit – and they yanked him up to the sky, and they rubbed raw hair and hide all over his little face, they couldn’t keep his mind. And that was as little as it had been the day he was crowned.
The borders were shaky. The neighbours were aggrieved. The queen hadn’t seen him in three months and his children not since the day they were born.
That didn’t concern the little king much, but his storyteller had died recently, and that made him very cross.
So the men went door to door, and they asked around, and they brought up men and women and although none of them quite pleased the king as much as his old storyteller had, they WERE a lot more numerous, and that was of all the pleasure he could ask for, and he went through them like some people went through clothes. A few changes a month.
One would stand there, to his left. One would stand there, to his right. The little king would wave his hand, like this.
Then the first in line would clear their throat and say “once upon a time…”
Lions and tigers, snakes and sorcerers, giants and princesses.
And he’d smile, and remember being happy again.
Years, given time, form decades for mutual protection and defense. They’re human creations, it’s only fitting that they do this. And it works well for them, gluing together time in blocks that stand firm even as mere matter crumbles and rushes against them.
There were no more little kings. There were a half-dozen old princes and princesses, though. Older than the little king had been when he fathered them, the eldest almost the age of his old storyteller back in the days he remembered.
He didn’t remember much else. If it was real, he didn’t want to hear it. Messengers left empty-handed with nobody bothering to even shoot them. Trade had given up and gone home. By and large the country outside the castle ran itself, save for those grim nights when the grey-faced men with halberds came down into the towns to interrogate anyone who might be hiding scraps of narrative. A children’s fable, a hearthside tale, a bedtime story – anything, anything at all. The elderly in particular were beset, and many an older man and woman was short a few fingers; the result of an earnest effort to make sure they weren’t shirking in their duties.
The king’s throne saw in the middle of his hall now. No story was new to him, not in whole nor in part. He’d made up for it for years with stereo, now he’d had to take it a step farther.
A nervous, throat-clearing storyteller at each hand, and one before him.
The little king waved his hand, like this.
And they said, all together and at once, “once upon a time…”
And it was true that once upon a time was a fancy.
It seemed likely than twice upon a time was pleasantry.
Thrice upon a time? That was more than could be held in just one place.
The castle didn’t vanish. Most people were very clear on that. The castle wasn’t gone. It hadn’t been spirited away.
But it wasn’t there anymore.
That isn’t the sort of thing people question. Good fortune was what it was. People shrugged, and peopled moved on, and when the neighbouring kingdoms came together and gently muddled their borders across the fields and towns nobody made a fuss.
And somewhere, far away, locked inside the crushed hours of a thousand compacted daydreams, there is a little king – not really a prince, not really himself – trapped somewhere on an edge, poised above a hundred dragons, a thousand princesses, a million witches. About to fall in, but holding his balance.
With no idea when he is.