Why I Can't Have Nice Kings

by Matthew Helbig

  My voice is terrible. I was hoping that after a few notes from me, they’d be forced to end the show. My only regret was that I didn’t see a gong.

  “I don’t think that is the thing we are looking for, but I will have to consult with him first.” The king pointed to a group assembling in the entrance.

  Quite Prophetable

  A small, modestly dressed priest pushed his way through the throng of advisors to clear the way for the priest behind him. The second priest reminded me of a mixture of the pope and Elvis. I wasn’t sure if I should ask him to forgive my sins or to see his blue suede shoes. Judging by the reverence the king showed him, I assumed he must be someone important, which in this messed-up version of my fake religion likely meant he was the one in charge of administering the holy wedgies. Perhaps he was the director of this travesty.

  “All bow before the Holy Archon, Shlong’Dong Yuranus the Forty-Second,” the first priest said.

  “Holy Archon,” King Berin said as he bowed, “it does us great honor to have the head of our entire religion present to bless the Shrine of St. William. While you’re here, could you tell us what the second item is?”

  “You may all rise. In the history of our religion, there have only been six of these, and, given that fact, I needn’t tell you what I’m talking about.”

  Cat spat out something blue in surprise. I didn’t want to know what it was, especially after it had crawled away. “Is it the number of morally trustworthy priests we’ve had?”

  The Holy Archon and the seven priests accompanying him all gave Cat a dirty look.

  “You’re right. There’s no way we’ve had six of ’em. How about the least number of holy days we’ve had in a week?”

  “As much as I hate to agree with this imbecile,” one of the advisors said, “it is hard to get anything done with our one-day work weeks.”

  “One day?” the king said. “We had eight holy days last week. Which two did you not honor?”

  The guards seized the advisor and took him away. I wished they had taken me as well. I wasn’t sure how there could be eight holy days in a seven-day week.

  The Holy Archon cut Cat off before he could say something about a sandwich. Surprisingly, Cat did not try to talk over the archon and shut his mouth. “What we have before us is a prophet.”

  There was a gasp from the crowd. The short, fat advisor fainted. The toad-like one yelped, then swallowed a fly. Verix and Arik made the sign of the cross—which was completely out of place for their religion. Someone from the back shouted, “Testify!”

  “My word!” King Berin said. “There hasn’t been a prophet among us for over a century. Why, whoever could it be?”

  Cat stepped forward and waved to the crowd.

  Jackal whispered to me, “Harry, that’s you. Do something.”

  Two of the priests stepped forward and put a robe on Cat.

  “Please! Before he proclaims mandatory sexual harassment and makes pants optional.”

  “Ohhhh, no,” I said. “I know how it goes with prophets. They’re declared a witch and burned at the stake. Cat can have this one.”

  “Think about it, Harry,” Jackal pleaded. “We’ll have a generation of mustachioed idiots running around interrupting tearful last words with fart noises, stabbing everything in sight, and doing unspeakable things with their manhood to pretty much everything. You’ll never be able to eat out again and will spend most of your time washing your hands. Think of the children!"

  While I do like to do what’s right, I am not what anyone would call a hero. I’m usually frightened by loud noises, the thought of danger, and hummingbirds. Plus, this was all a TV show, so none of it even mattered. It wasn’t like real people were going to die. However, I thought, if I “died” in this show, they would have to let me go home. They’d probably burn me alive with special effects, and I wouldn’t even be hurt. “Your Majesty, I am a prophet of The One, and I can prove it. If I’m not, I’ll let you burn me at the stake.”

  “My word,” the king said. “That is quite the claim. Will your challenger make the same claim?”

  Cat flung off the robes and ran to the back of the crowd. “Oh, look, blue peaches. Sorry, I’m too hungry to be a prophet right now.”

  “Great,” I said. “So, what do I do? Say something wise and inspired? Then someone betrays me and I get killed, right? Where’s the best place to stand to start my speech? Come on. I’d like to get out of here by dinnertime.”

  “While I appreciate your enthusiasm,” King Berin said, “the Holy Archon has to prove that you are in fact a prophet and not just some fat guy who craves attention.”

  “I am not fat!”

  One of the priests scurried in front of the archon and held out a large, elaborately decorated book. The archon turned the pages a few times—likely at random—and gave a reverent nod to the crowd, asking for silence.

  “The great book outlines threeeeeeeee characteristics that a prophet must possess, and only threeeeee. We will not get into the fourth one that the heretics who follow The One and a Half believe.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness, those blasphemers actually believe that a prophet can be a woman in even-numbered years. Ridiculous.” At least the last word was right.

  “Our crusaders should have that heretical sect destroyed within the year. How fortunate that they are all allergic to water. Now, on to the Three Holy Attributes of a Holy Prophet of Most Holy The One. According to the Book of Marlon the Goofy: ‘A prophet must be over the height of six feet, but not exceeding six feet and seven inches, as that would be a little weird.’ Is this man within the height criteria? Brother Fungus?”

  A small, rather flustered man scurried forth and attempted to measure my height with a measuring tape. Unfortunately, he could only reach my armpits, and after a few minutes of shouting from the Holy Archon, a stool was brought forth and he concluded that I was six feet, three inches tall. I must have grown an inch.

  “As this man meets those criteria, let me continue: ‘A prophet of Our Lord must also hear voices guiding him in all matters spiritual, but not doing things like telling him winning lottery numbers or where he left his wagon keys.’ Does thou hear voices?”

  “Yes, I do.” I actually didn’t, besides the usual, like my grandma telling me not to pick my nose in public or stare at women’s breasts when they might notice.

  “Do you know yesterday’s winning lottery numbers for the Garandian National Lottery?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Take a guess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “1-13-37-44 and the Special Ball of 14.”

  “Brother Inflammation?”

  “That is not correct!”

  The Holy Archon put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a serious look. “And where are your wagon keys?”

  “I don’t have a wagon, and I don’t think they usually have keys, anyway.”

  “Very clever of you to have sold that. Prophets are often crafty. Now, we must determine if you can hear the voice of the Lord.”

  “Brother Stink Eye, bring forth the cup.”

  Another priest shambled through the throng of advisors, this one holding a small cup encrusted in gold with engravings of tiny fat kids poking each other. The priest handed me the cup, which was empty. I stared at it for a few minutes, but no one came forward to fill it.

  After a lengthy, painful silence, the Holy Archon said, “Ahem. You have to urinate in it.”

  “Really? How is that going to show that I hear the voice of The One?”

  “Well, I know that I usually have some of my best ideas when I’m in the bathroom.”

  “I thought up the plan for the Battle of Awkward Hippos when I was doing number two,” one of the generals said, “and that was a great victory.”

  “That was!” King Berin patted the general on the back. “Our current fiscal policy was thought up while I was urinating after my coronation.” I thought I heard someone cough that the policy really was just a bunch of something, though n
ot urine.

  “And it is written in the Great Book that Our Lord created the Fifteen Holy Suggestions on How to Live a Better Life when he had a case of the runs,” the Holy Archon said. “Now, please, pee in the cup. We also need to test for performance-enhancing drugs.”

  “Oh, no,” the king said, “using those would be terrible. We must run a clean religion here.”

  “Quite right, Your Majesty,” said the fat advisor. “Leave the drugs to the followers of The One and a Half.”

  In order to get this over with, I turned around in the corner and peed into the cup while Brother Stink Eye watched. After I was done, Brother Stink Eye took the cup and scurried off to test it. I wasn’t sure what kind of tests he was going to do—he probably just tossed it into a bush—but I was confident that I would pass all of them.

  “Now, please grace us with a prophecy,” the Holy Archon said.

  What do you say to that? Obviously, I wasn’t a prophet of any kind. Whatever I said could affect the lives of a lot of people. Generations might stick with whatever came from my mouth right then because I was on TV.

  “How about, ‘Love thy neighbor as yourself’?” I suggested.

  “That’s stupid,” Brother Fungus said. “What if your neighbor is a jerk?”

  “Or what if you don’t like yourself much?” Brother Inflammation said. “Are you supposed to hate your neighbor then?”

  “It’s supposed to be a metaphorical neighbor,” I said. “Neighbor means anyone besides yourself.”

  “Ha!” the Holy Archon said. “The One would never send that as a message. In the Book of French the Steward, it says: ‘Beat thy neighbors with sticks to prove how much better thou art, unless they are bigger than you, then you should bake them pies, so that they might leave thou alone.’”

  The Holy Archon continued. “Now, try again. I’ll give you one more try, and then we’ll burn you at the stake or slap you around a little if we can’t get a fire started. You may have just had indigestion, which we all know can affect prophesizing.”

  “Yes,” Brother Inflammation said. “The prophet Blandulese once prophesized that hurting another person is a sin after he had a bad sausage, and look where that got him.”

  “The Paruxians beat him to death with sporks shortly after that,” Brother Stink Eye said. “But he was responsible for the prophecy of no underwear Saturdays as he lay dying.”

  Brother Inflammation nodded vigorously. “The freedom of no underwear on Saturdays carried the early followers of The One to countless military victories over the heathens. Our faith would have never spread without that prophecy.”

  Okay, so inspiring religious statements from the Bible didn’t seem to work. These people did seem to like ridiculous, nonsensical things, so maybe they’d like No Shave November, or Pig Latin, or I could “invent” the fanny pack. No, that was too stupid.

  Wait! Why did I care? I wanted to be burned at the stake.

  “Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot.” My four-year-old self would be so proud that I’d said that on television.

  The crowd was stunned into silence, so dumb was my statement. I beamed a fantastic grin and mentally patted myself on the back. No one said anything for at least a minute, a feat I can usually only accomplish unintentionally. The majority of them stared at the Holy Archon for guidance. Most likely, he was trying to figure out if he could burn someone at the stake twice.

  After a few aborted attempts at speech, the Holy Archon finally blurted out, “Brilliant! The Almighty has finally given us guidance at this low ebb of spirituality and desperation.”

  “Of course, Your High Holiness,” Brother Fungus said. “The bean is indeed a magical fruit, though I had always thought of it as a vegetable. If The One says it is a fruit, then it is a fruit. I must find some parchment to record this holy statement.”

  He skipped off to find something to write my moronic wisdom on. He probably could have found it carved into the walls of the nearest men’s bathroom.

  “I thought it was a legume,” Cat said.

  “If the prophet says it is a fruit, then it is clearly a fruit,” the Holy Archon said. “I shall issue a proclamation that henceforth, all legumes are now fruits and are magical. And all armies of The One shall consume mass quantities of beans before engaging any heathen armies.”

  “Isn’t there a third criterion?” Cat said. Wolf and I both gave him an incredibly dirty look, which, as usual, was lost on him.

  “Oh, I know this one,” King Berin said. “From the Book of Adam of Sand: ‘All prophets shall be considered by the majority of their peers to be idiots, but in a loveable way and not in a pitiable way, like, ‘Aww, that’s so cute, but now I feel bad for him.’”

  Perfect. I was definitely lovable. I was obviously not an idiot, though this group probably would consider me one, as they likely wouldn’t know a good idea if it hit them in the genitals. They had, after all, thought my earlier statement was genius. This requirement might have thwarted my plan of being burned at the stake, however.

  “That is what it says in the general public’s version of the Holy Book,” the Holy Archon said, “but in the secret copy only given to the high clergy, it says something different. We keep this version of the text out of the general public’s view so that false prophets don’t fake all the steps.”

  Brother Inflammation walked forward and opened the comically oversized book in front of the Holy Archon, who turned it to a marked passage.

  “According to the secret Book of James, who only became famous because of his more talented brother:

  Adam does not know what he is talking about. The Lord only talked to him as a joke, to see what people would actually believe. It was on the Day of Fools, after all. He really should have known better.

  All Holy Prophets of the Lord shall have dark beards and glasses. They shall also be not quite overweight, though they could stand to lose a few pounds.

  “So sayeth The Lord. Amen.” The Archon closed the book dramatically and Brother Inflammation left, probably to set the book down and get his back looked at.

  After a few minutes of hushed conversations amongst the crowd, the Holy Archon silenced them. “And I’d appreciate it if everyone here would keep the whole ‘secret book’ thing quiet. Brother Fungus will have you all sign holy non-disclosure agreements before you leave. I think it is clear that this person does not fit the last criterion.”

  Huh? That was exactly what I looked like. In my last book, it even said that word for word in my dust jacket bio. (I really should have reviewed that thing before they printed it.)

  “Quite right, Your High Holiness,” the toad-like advisor said. “This man is a clean-shaven redhead and is rail thin.” The gaggle of advisors all nodded in agreement.

  “Umm, Your Holyship,” Cat said, “that sounds exactly like him. His hair is most definitely dark brown.” He then poked me in the stomach a few times, which I found rather comforting. “And, see, he does need to lose a few pounds.”

  The advisors shook their heads in disagreement and gave Cat disgusted looks.

  The Holy Archon stepped forward and looked me hard in the eyes. He then tweaked my nose, fondled my elbows more than I usually like, and called his fellow priests over into a huddle.

  A few minutes later, he emerged from the pack. “Oh, this fellow. I thought we were talking about someone else. He does indeed meet the description.” The advisors all nodded again, indicating that they had known I was a prophet all along.

  “What is your name, Holy Prophet?” the Holy Archon asked.

  “Harry.”

  “Then you shall be known henceforth as Harry the Prophet, but we should really think of a new name for you, so as not to confuse you with the Hairy Prophet, also known as St. Magnacious the Chimp.”

  “O Holy Prophet named Harry,” King Berin said, “he who will need a new nickname later, what is it that The One wants this righteous army full of believers to do?”

  I stepped
forward and paused dramatically near the spot the king had been monologuing toward before. “The One has instructed me to tell you to end this war. Give peace a chance.”

  The crowd gasped, and one particularly large man in the back fainted forward, taking out several other advisors. The generals performed an especially impressive bit of synchronized scowling. I would have clapped if it hadn’t been so menacing.

  Verix stepped forward with a pleading look on his face. “Harry, surely you are mistaken. Except for the last battle, we have routinely defeated the rebels. With the inspiration of the Holy Paddle and yourself, the first prophet in living memory, surely we will crush the enemy and destroy the last of the Sculander armies in the field.”

  “You should not address a prophet of The One in such a manner, son,” the Holy Archon said. “The proper address is Holiest Speaker or Harry the Prophet, with official nickname to be chosen later.”

  “It’s all right,” Verix said. “I knew him before he was famous.”

  “Oh. Then it is allowed by Holy Law,” the Holy Archon said.

  I wasn’t sure what to do now. I wasn’t liking the amount of time and energy that a battle would take, even if the Garandians were likely to get routed. Even in a well-choreographed battle, a lot could go wrong. I might get trampled on accident or become surrounded by ever-zealous fans and get carpal tunnel from all of the autograph signing. On the other hand, if I kept pushing an obviously unpopular order, they were likely to revoke my prophethood. Propheticism? Prophetability? Whatever. You know what I mean.

  “The One was very clear that he wants this war to end,” I said.

  “You heard him,” King Berin said with renewed vigor. “We must end this war now!”

  The crowd erupted in cheers and applause, and the king sent messengers out immediately. Verix smacked me on the back and completely knocked the wind out of me, which prevented me from speaking further, though I doubted anyone would have heard me over the noise anyway.

  By the time I was able to speak again, most of the tent had emptied. The only people present were the king, Verix, Arik, the Trio, and myself. King Berin beamed with enthusiasm and stared reverently at the Holy Paddle.