The Scribe’s Observations

We have dined in the dark for a century. The King wears his happy face and his tinsel crown, never letting the painted smile slip, even as the walls of the hall begin to dissolve into grain and ink.

The golden sun is trapped in the corner of the sky, a flat, grinning specter that refuses to set or rise. Tonight, the banquet table is a graveyard of spoiled wealth, withered lemons and rotting grapes spill over the edge like forgotten thoughts, while the wine glasses sit half-full of stagnant shadow.

I stood in the shadows and served him his own heart on a porcelain platter, torn fresh and glowing with a violent, synthetic magenta. He accepted it with gloved hands, his ruff collar framing a face that knows only absolute joy. He smiled as he ate it, bite by agonizing bite, savoring the only real thing left in a world made of copperplate etchings.

I documented the event in the ledger with a quill dipped in the exact same vivid pigment. We are all quite mad here, but at least the meal is consistent