Myopia - 'All the King's Horses'

I know that I haven't been very good at this blogging as of late, but I saw the other day that some other up and comers are using their blogs to showcase a little of their work, and I thought that I might as well look to do the same!

Here's a short story that I'm one day hoping will be joined by others in a collection called Myopia - it's only a little ditty, but if you don't like this one you might like one of the others!

All the King's Horses

Ted Wilkes

The facts were there and could no longer be ignored by those who had them constantly thrust under their nose, but directed the reports and folders to be placed under a rug away from prying eyes of intrigue. Candy Land had run out of sugar, and this was bad. Without the sweet stuff there would be nothing for the munchkins to eat, and with nothing to eat the munchkins would starve which would look bad on the Candy Cane King. It wouldn’t be such a problem except they had started to notice that their sugary drinks were a little sour, their candy bars lacked that taste they liked and their sherbet no longer was as lickable as it once was.

They thought about rationing the sugar lumps so that each and everyone would have to have one lump not two, but then it would be a problem for the dentists who made their living on those munchkins who had eaten too much and came to them with rotting teeth. The Candy Cane King had to have a respect for the dentists, as without them there would be no place to go so that he might hide his own bad teeth. There was also the terrible problem that those close to the Candy Cane King also liked the taste of the sticky white powder, and had become plump from gorging themselves on it, and they intended to keep their waistlines at capacity.

Having a dilemma was not in the King’s plan. It was against the image that he had built for himself, and meant that he would have to explain and apologise to the munchkins, a race that he did so dislike with their sticky fingers and jittery eyes that came from having the right amount of sugar that did not make them fat and lethargic, but have them racing around looking for where they might find their next lump, hoping that it might be bigger than the last. Before most of them had no time for the King as they only had eyes for their own little pile of white powder rather than looking at where it came from, and the king liked it that way. After all if they ever stared too closely at the King they might discover that he was made of the very thing that they coveted.

The solution came in the egg. The poor dim witted egg that they had perched on the wall just overlooking the town of the munchkins. She had been a star, and the people loved her rolling around on the streets flashing her winning smile, the sweet heart of Candy Land. Her time to be of use had come.

It was simple to push her with promises of a new life beyond her rolling and smiling that she was tired of. It was made clear that all she had to do was fall; on the other side of the wall would be everything that she wanted, and in doing so she would leave the shape of her last life behind. The munchkins would respect her for the decision to no longer be that egg, and buy into this new path that she was forging for herself way into the distance.

Though it ended in tears as she leapt from the wall, she shattered into three pieces exposing her yoke for all to see. Some of the munchkins liked it too much baying for more, enjoying this new shape that she had fashioned herself into fawning over the pictures of her that appeared in the Daily Cane, dribbling at the insides that she had shown. Others debated the depravity with which she exposed herself, and how their might have been tinnier munchkins who were yet to find a voice that might be influenced to jump from walls in an attempt to fashion themselves into the thing that she had become.

In the end the king’s men and all their horses were unable to put her back together again. It was no matter; she was left on the sidewalk she ended up on to become what she would become. Though in the eyes of the king it was a success, people were talking about eggs when they should really be taking about sugar.