The King of December

Once, whilst travelling abroad, I came upon a strange kingdom where time had become completely frozen; frozen in the middle of a snowy December day.

 

The air was filled with snowflakes that, frozen in time, had never reached the ground and I was forced to push my way through them.

 

And revellers with broad, beaming smiles stood about like mannequins; the light inside their eyes, frozen so that their eyes looked like jewels  as they gazed up, with perpetually gasping mouths at an eternally dark sky hung with frozen firework fountains.

 

“What can have become of all these people?”, I wondered.

 

But then, up ahead, I saw a large white stone castle with snow covered battlements and turrets and thought that perhaps I might find the answer there.

 

But inside the castle time was frozen too. Servants that, had they been able to move, would have been rushing about, busy at their work, stood motionless, some carrying serving trays and resembling statues supporting grecian urns.

 

I weaved my way through a maze of bodies following a corridor deeper into the castle until I came to the throne room and saw more frozen people; these ones dressed in the fine clothes of noblemen and women and all of them raising golden goblets in the direction of the seated king as if drinking a toast to his health.

 

But then, suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a flicker of movement; the person sitting upon the throne, the ruler of this strange kingdom, I realised, was not frozen.

 

“Your majesty?”, I said to him bowing.

 

“When will it end?”, he asked me, gloomily.

 

“What?”, I enquired

 

“This December the 25th”, he said, “I made a very foolish wish when I was very young. I wished that Christmas Day would never end but then this happened; everything stopped and when everything stopped all the fun stopped; the life stopped. Everything looks happy here but no one is happy because no one can move and it is all my fault”.

 

“That is why you stay here?”, I asked.

 

“I stay here hoping that they will all come back; that the spell will end”, said the king.

 

“Well then”, I said, “Perhaps they are not the ones who are frozen in time”.

 

The King looked at me, perplexed.

 

“Perhaps”, I explained, “It is really you who is standing still; you are the one holding onto the moment. Perhaps you should just forget about your wish. Forget about all these people”.

 

I took the King by the hand and led him out of the castle and beyond the boundaries of his kingdom.

 

“Time has moved on”, I said, pointing to an aeroplane that I noticed passing overhead.

 

The king looked up at the object in the sky, stunned.

 

“Witchcraft”, he said, smiling, not afraid but delighted.

 

But then, suddenly, we both heard the sound of cheering from behind us and heard excited revellers shouting, “Merry Christmas”.

 

The kings kingdom was returning to life just as it had been when it had frozen centuries ago.

 

But now, having seen the plane in the sky, the King didn’t seem interested in his kingdom anymore.

 

“I realise that I’ve wasted enough time”, he said, “Inside my kingdom I never grew old but I never lived. I want to see the world now. There must be so many things to see”.

 

“There are”, I said.

 

“Then I would like to see them all while I still can”, he said, turning away from his kingdom and walking out into the world.