The Duke

This is copypasted from an MSN conversation and edited poorly to fit a blog post. Apologies. I want to keep it, though.


There was once a city, populated entirely by happy people.
Everyone was happy, all the time, and the city ran incredibly efficiently.
One day, a stranger came to the city, and the people told him how wonderful it all was.
But he began to notice something...strange.
Everyone moved the same way, talked the same way, even acted the same way!
And they all wanted him to see the Duke.
So away he went, to see the Duke of the happy city.
So he went to see the duke, and the duke was a nice, smiling man who wasn't like the others, who laughed on his own and moved on his own and seemed to be his own person, on the whole.
And he wore the strangest crown.
It was bright blue! And made of bone.
And it reflected the light in the strangest way.
And the stranger (who was a young and bold man) asked the duke why everyone in his city behaved so strangely.
And the duke smiled.
And laughed. And told him not to worry.
And pat him on the head.
And sent him on his way.
And the young man didn't like this in the slightest.
So, late that night, when all of the happy people were asleep, the young man stole out of the rooms in which he was staying.
And do you know what he did?
He scaled the walls of the Duke's castle!
He just up and climbed them!
And he stole into the Duke's rooms in the dead of night.
And he saw the Duke, fast asleep in his bed, and he saw the crown sitting on the bedside table.
And do you know what he did then?
Can you guess?
Are you sure?
The young man was a bit cheeky.
So he put the crown on his head!
Right on his head, as if he was the Duke!
And do you know what happened then?
I bet you don't.
The crown began to hum, quietly!
It was a magic crown, you see.
And it made a humming sound!
And the young man thought, what a funny humming crown!
And then something else happened. For you see, this crown was magical in a very special way.
And the young man began to feel unsteady on his feet.
Because the crown began to work the magic it was built for.
And then at last the young man realised why everyone in the city was so happy.
You see, this crown was made of a very special metal that absorbed emotion. A very special, magic metal, that would absorb the emotions of everybody around it, as long as it was worn on the head of somebody! And this crown was absorbing the emotions of an entire city!
It was absorbing all the sorrow,all the suffering, all of the tragedy and fear and petty loathing and disgust in the entire city, and it was devouring them and distilling them and destroying those vile emotions before they could poison the city!
And do you know what it did then, with the ruins of these emotions?
It distilled them. Concentrated them. And then fed them, in a steady, steady flow, to the wearer of the crown.
As long as the crown was worn, it would free an entire city from suffering - and inflict all of that pain, all of that horror, all of that hate on the wearer.
And the young man stood there with tears flowing down his face as he felt all of that sorrow, all of that horror, sitting in that innocent crown of bone.
And he thought about the Duke, and how the Duke had met him smiling, and laughing, without a care in the world.
And he thought about the man who bore the weight of an entire city's fucked up thoughts every day of his life and could still smile and sleep at night, because he knew that he was doing good.
And the young man quietly removed the crown from his head.
Set it on the bedside table.
And slit the Duke's throat from ear to ear.
And stole out into the night.
And that's the end of the story.