King

I am the king of your world, I said to myself as I danced in front of the mirror. It wasn't the first time that I said it, though it may have been one of the last. Way back when we were cutting paper bats for Halloween - you and me with Simon and Garfunkel in the background - I had said it and you had looked at me funny, obviously hoping I was joking. Only I wasn't. It was a bold claim, yes, but I felt I could live up to it. 1

We both know how that ended and I won't remind you but does serve to illustrate my point. As my own devilishly green eyes sparkled at me from the mirror, hiding a secret pleasure that even I wasn't sure I understood, I realized that I really was the king of your world. Was I talking to you or to myself? It didn't matter. I pulled on my shirt and tied a beige scarf around my neck. My brown hair cascaded down my forehead in short diagonal curves, bouncing as I bobbed to the beat of the music. I had neighbors and the music was certainly loud enough to justify their scorn, but there had been no complaints yet. Maybe I had become king of their world as well. 2

Over the shirt came a striped jacket, and I danced to my cluttered desk and rummaged through the stuff there. I tossed sheets of paper and articles of junk through the room as I hunted for the glittering trinket. There it was – a little pin in the shape of a golden crown, which I pinned to the front of my jacket. I had a real life-size crown, but I had to wait until gaudy headgear became cool again before I could wear it. 3

I turned the music up another notch until it was obnoxiously loud, dropped everything I was doing, put my hands on my face and whipped my head around to the music, running my fingers through my hair. I wanted louder so I plugged in my headphones and turned the volume up more. I had to hold the headphones tightly as I danced spastically back and forth. I closed my eyes and felt the music overwhelm me.
After about half a minute I got tired of holding the headphones with my hands so I ripped them off and flung them across the room. The cord jumped free and the music blasted from my speakers again. I spun as fast as I could, but I did it too fast for too long and I fell, feeling dizzy and slightly sick. I looked at my watch, waited until the numbers stopped swimming, realized I had to hurry, and crawled back to the mirror.
I ran my hands through my hair a couple of times and that fixed the damage I had done – in fact I looked slightly better with a few loose tufts of hair sticking playfully from my carefully orchestrated setup. I put on some after-shave, slipped into my shoes, hung my silver necklace around my neck and smeared a little bit of balm on my lips. 4

Time to go. I picked up my coat and walked to the door. As I passed the mirror, I gave myself one last look. To be honest, I looked very, very good. Chiseled jaw, lively green eyes under that masterful brown hair, slight masculine stubble on my cheeks, eyebrows slightly raised in a look of mild amusement. Perfect. 5

I had always been handsome – more so than you even, but apparently even that hadn't been enough for you. I never understood how you could think that you could get someone better than me, actually, but fortunately you seemed to have learned from your mistakes.
It had taken me a long time and a lot of effort, but you had found your way back to me, where you belonged. As I closed my door, I pulled on my coat and put on my sunglasses. 6

The ride in my car was short but sweet as the music went loud enough and the roads were empty enough for me to swerve a fair bit. I imagined how I would look dancing with you, my hands gliding gracefully around you, my hips fluent with the music, the flaps of my jacket twisting and twirling like wings on the wind of my coolness. Oh, how you would regret leaving me when you'd see me like that. You would finally see in me what those other girls had. You would see my worth and you would realize you had been a fool to let me go. You would fall at my feet, staring up at me with tears of awe brimming in your eyes, and you would sing of my greatness. I looked at myself in my rear-view mirror. “I am the king of your world,” I said. 7

It's cold and the lights below crawl along the ground like luminescent ants. I tower over them and my hand glides to my chest where the little golden crown is pinned to my jacket. You look at me, confused. You ask me to come back, to step off the ledge. I vaguely shake my head at you, my carefully practiced look of mild amusement nowhere to be found, and finally the tears come - but they are not the tears of awe I had hoped to see. You fall to your knees, but you do not look up at me in wonder. You do not sing of my greatness, but instead you cry and sob and beg me to come back down. I look at you, disgust plain on my face, and tell you that your latest rejection is final. You made the choice to let me go again, and this time, there is no second chance. You will have to learn to live with your mistake.8

You tell me you are sorry, but I do not listen. A king doesn't have to listen to anybody. I close my eyes and let myself fall backwards, the music in my head sweeping to a crescendo. Far away I hear you scream, but I don't feel the urgency in it. A king does not let others press him into a sense of urgency. 9

But was I really king of your world? A seed of doubt grew inside me in an instant. Maybe you were queen of my world – after all, who knows how much time I spent on you? How much effort I put into winning you back? How much of my life had revolved around you? Had I been too afraid to see the truth in your rejections? Instead of facing reality, had I hid in delusions of grandeur? Maybe I had become king of no world except my own.10

I opened my eyes and all my doubts disappeared. As the wind rushed up past me, I saw the glowing ants below me. From up here I was king, looking down at my minions. Left and right, my kingdom stretched almost endlessly. As I came closer to the ground, I saw people there – some falling to their knees, others standing up – but all staring up at me in wonder, and I knew what I was. I smiled, spread my arms, and let out a last triumphant call: “I am the king of your world!”