I Was Once a King and the Whole Realm Bowed

Flash-fiction - by Jared Oliver Adams

"The wilderness-woven water surged over the deck, and with it sloshed the masses of seaweed that had formed the body of the beast. And I, I stood astride the heaving ship with my lyre, which now glowed as if 'twere a sun, for its music had sounded with the light of truth and made the beast regret its ravening. 'Twas then that the dawn broke upon the raging sea and the angry whitecaps calmed. The last note of my song hung in the air like a rung bell, until … I heard the faint flap of wings and the dove who had first sent me on my quest landing on the dripping deck-rail with a crown of golden twigs in its beak.

"The dove deigned not speak. It never did. But in its peculiar way it communicated nonetheless that it was proud of me, that I had for it done well. I can't describe that feeling, the fullness of it, to know you have done well, to know that the being who created the entire world with its silent song thought you righteous. 

"And when I returned to the shore, I was the High King. People and animals came from all the islands in The Dove's Archipelago to ask for my judgements, and I sang with the sure voice of youth, not like my voice now. Many times I journeyed out at the request of my subjects, lyre in hand, ship underfoot, waves salting my face. Many times, the dove returned to me with its hushed blessing.

"Until. 

"Until, one day, I awoke in my royal bedchamber, and pulled back the shimmering mer-scale curtains to see my wardrobe standing open, and a light shining forth from it. And the dove perched atop the swung-open door, beckoning me forth to my next adventure.

"And when I stepped into it, I changed from a grown man to a boy just your age, and stepped out of an ordinary closet here in this world."  

The end of the story breathes stillness into my small apartment, as if, for a time, the picture-frame-crowded-walls had vanished. 

Nevaeh snuggles against me on my threadbare couch, her onyx eyes wide and wondering. Her brown cheeks are still baby-smooth at six. "Can you take me there, Grandpa?" 

I tighten my hug to distract her from the sorrow I feel passing over my face. "Alas, little Heaven, 'tis not in the power of any to return but in story."

"Oh," says Nevaeh, absently patting my belly. "But what if I see the special door? And the dove is there. And I run and get you real quick so you can come too? Or if it's back at my house, I'll call you on the phone. Then it wouldn't be returning, really, because I would be going for the first time and just pulling you like a suitcase." 

I flick a twizzle of hair off her forehead and she giggles. "If you call, I'll get in my car right away. But I'll bring water shoes, I think, because the decks of those ships are slippery." 

We spend the rest of the night lost in a fantasy of packing for our imagined trip. I fill an old backpack and we put it under her bed right beside her sneakers, which she declares "will have to do until my new water shoes come from Amazon." She clutches a flashlight and smiles as she sleeps. 

Back in the living room, I run my hands over the picture frames. Was it well done, Oh Dove, this part of my adventure?

My fingers come to rest on the picture of my mother and my heart breaks like glass. 

I entered the wardrobe a king and emerged a black boy in Detroit unable to sing his problems away, a mother I didn't know crumpled over the kitchen table in exhaustion after her double shift at the hospital.

When I placed my hand on her shoulder, she had snorted awake in shock, then put her arm around me like I had always belonged there. I remember even now how the scent of shea butter from her hair mixed with the burnt hospital smell from her scrubs. They'd been new smells then, smells of this world.   

"Did I wake you from your dreams, Langston?" she had said. 

And I hadn't known what to say. Because I knew it hadn't been a dream, knew it with every fiber of my being, but also had some sense that describing my trip from another world wouldn't be believed.

How I wondered what you, Oh Dove, meant me to do. Then, as time wore on, how that wonder turned to weeping at my closet door, praying to be let back through.   

How many times did a pigeon's wings give me quickly curdled hope that you had returned, even on into adulthood? How many times did I curse you? 

Nevaeh, I pray you sleep soundly. 

I pray … what? That she would remain here always, perennially six? That she stay at harbor her whole life, safe from storms, but never seeing the open ocean?    

No, Nevaeh. Your idea is best, waiting in hope with your flashlight and your packed bag. 

I change the delivery speed on your water shoes to Next Day, and put my own beside my bed.

Just in case.