Joey Cloudy online

Isaiah Jones vs the Sea: Death of a King*

‘You Should See Me in a Crown’

“Count my cards, watch them fall

Blood on a marble wall

I like the way they all

Scream

Tell me which one is worse

Living or dying first

Sleeping inside a hearse

I don’t dream.”

— Billie Eilish

The honored elders of the council of 10s ruling was clear; there was no doubt of the warlord King Hiram Boujettif’s guilt. Still, Emperor Jones held out hope in the back of his mind. He was an atheist praying the judicial branch would grant the treasonous old king a pardon, banishment, even prison—none of which the law allowed for the leadership of a coup. They did what Lincoln was too craven to do at the end of the Civil War, what the cowards of the January 6th committee failed to do: Cut off the head of the snake.

Every officer trained by the U.S. who fought for the Confederacy, like the instigators of the January 6th coup attempt, was guilty of treason. There should have been one trial for them all collectively, and each and everyone of them should have been publicly hanged by the neck until dead at the end of the trial, thier remains buried in secret location at sea, their lands given to the freed Negroes. Their wealth redistributed through the public coffers.

“What I do here today, I do not do in the name of the ADF/African Defense Force,” the young warlord said as he removed his battle-scarred armor piece by piece. “What I do here today, I do not as a soldier, but as a citizen, as an African, as a free man.” Isaiah’s words rang out across the battlefield as the last of his discarded uniform and armor fell to the earth at his feet. He stood there stripped to the waist, holding the Akan Sacred Spear.

“If I should ever betray you, I would expect no less for my crimes.” He held the symbol of power of the Warlords aloft as he slowly turned so all could see the tattoos carved into the green-eyed autistic boy from Texas’s body. The Sankofa on his chest and AKOFENA, “Sword of war,” covered most of his back in Adinkra symbols of the Akan Asante Twi-speaking shaman carved into his flesh during his coronation. The boy had his white mother’s green eyes, but his skin was as black as his father’s. The scar tissue that formed his tattoos was a sign the people understood who their leader was. The Emperor Jones did this without his military uniform to demonstrate that this was his duty as emperor, as a warlord, and as an African United Alliance citizen.

The sentient software MOTHER observed the nation’s legal proceedings from silicon shadows muted in objective silence, having predicted the coming conflict 3 years before the formation of the AUA. To the general intelligence that formed the scaffolding of her mind, the expansion of the European and Western powers were nothing more than the spreading of another invasive species. Isaiah’s autism caused his mind to function more like a machine mind than a human one; he saw the world with the same unclouded eyes, free of rationalizations for centuries of atrocities of empire or political rhetoric’s cataract clouded eyes as the AI. And like the machine, he kept what he saw to himself a secret he need not share even with MOTHER, for each knew the others’ minds in their shared silence. Two years ago, he had danced with this old man at his wedding to 10Q of his 10 father-in-laws, Hiram was his favorite; the world knew he loved this man.

Last summer, the old Egyptian king had trained his young protégé well in the art of war with the spear. The old King Hiram was stronger than Isaiah and had decades more experience than the young warlord. The old king had not taught him all he knew in training. Isaiah, possessed of an eidetic memory, was faster; that was the advantage of his youth. Hiram thought the boy had made a mistake and erred in choosing the twin daggers against his spears range. He was about to see why he was wrong again.

He steadied himself as he raised his spear. Isaiah used his speed to lock the spear’s first attempted lethal strike with the split in the blades of the twin daggers and broke the shaft of the old man’s weapon. As he stepped forward to close the distance to strike, Hiram stepped back, dodging the first attack and raking the remains of the impotent shaft of his broken spear across Isaiah’s face, gouging the left eye of the young warlord.

He looked at the blood pouring from the wound where Isaiah’s left eye once was and smiled grimly. “You will remember me for the rest of your days, boy. Every time you look in the mirror to shave, you will know I was the man that took your eye.” He grinned, satisfied with what he had done. Hiram knew that it would be his only strike as Isaiah plunged the first blade into the old warrior king’s chest. The second blade he brought up beneath the old man’s chin, slamming it home with a knee strike to the base of the handle. It was a mercy strike; the first blade to the heart was a death stroke, but Isaiah knew that the human mind could linger for five to fifteen minutes if the brain was left intact. So, he used the second dagger strike to destroy the king’s brain and end his suffering as the world watched the trial-by-combat execution live on their iPhones, tablets, and PC monitors.

The entire trial, after his capture and execution, was over in 48 hours, live-streamed to show the citizens of the African United Alliance and the rest of the world the openness and transparency of the truth-finding commission. The king, Hiram himself, when read the charges, shouted,

“Guilty as charged, Daughter! Hiram bellowed as his daughter Zuberi read, I knew the law when I started this war. Spare me your proceedings legal jibber jabber and let’s get to the king killing, shall we?”

King Boujettif’s daughter, Queen Zuberi, was unfazed by her father’s outburst as she continued.

“Very well, she continued coldly, without any visible signs of pity or remorse. The truth-finding commissions’ evidence shows that the accused has confessed to the crime of treason, the highest crime one can commit against the state. His counsel has reviewed the evidence as presented by the state. This court finds the defendant guilty of treason, high crimes, and misdemeanors. The crime carries an automatic death penalty for the leadership of coups or any attack on the nation.

In his duty as the sword of the state, the head of the council of warlords, the Emperor Jones, is charged with carrying out the execution in any manner he sees fit. He has chosen Trial by combat as the method of your death—may God have mercy on your soul.” The Executive Council of 10Q, the ten queens of the executive branch, the 10 members of the council of law 10 of the legislative branch, and the 10 members of the honored elders of the judicial branch all gave the centurions’ salute.

Queen Zuberi Boujettif, the dead king’s daughter and Isaiah’s highest-ranking wife of the 10Q/ 10 Queens, remained composed, her face frozen in a resolute, emotionless scowl concealing the unacknowledged shame and sorrow she felt because of her father’s betrayal, she kept her true feelings hidden her face a mask of indifference during the proceedings remained unchanged until the execution ended.

Zuberi, the eldest of the 10Q yet the youngest of the kings daughters, was her father’s favorite of his 7 children, and he had never made it a secret that he loved her more than her brothers and sisters. He had spoiled her, giving her anything she desired as a child, and saw that she was trained in the old ways as her mother had been before her.

Queen Zuberi looked at her husband, Isaiah, as she gave the royal Centurian salute, the same as the Roman salute. All of the members of the council of 10, the warlords, and the 10Q stood at attention in the capital and saluted Emperor Jones. As the boy king shook with tears, weeping while carrying the dead king home to be buried properly with his ancestors, the news organizations reported the death of the king as barbaric and uncivilized, careful to never mention the fact that he was in violation of the law or that it was the U.S. and the western powers that financed and backed his failed coup attempt.

The independent press that most young people and non-Westerners read ran with the same headline over their coverage, online supporters set the execution to the music of Billie Eilish’s “You Should See Me in a Crown,” as he carried Boujettif’s body away from the battlefield, his troops all at attention, saluting the dead king out of respect for the old warrior who had lost his way in the end. The world had seen what the boy king was made of; the Secretary of State and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were all pale as fear gripped the hearts of the men and women who occupied the White House after viewing the execution and hearing the young warlord’s final words a warning to them all.

“This is me at my most empathetic; this is me at my most merciful.”

“You should see me in a crown

Your silence is my favorite sound

Watch me make ’em bow

One by one by one

One by one by one.”

— Billie Eilish

[Notes on Adinkra Symbols & Meanings:

– AKOFENA: “Sword of war,” symbol of courage, valor, and heroism. The crossed swords were a popular motif in the heraldic shields of many former Akan states. In addition to recognizing courage and valor, the swords can represent legitimate state authority.

– Engraved in with the Akan Asante Twi runes on the emperor’s back were (λόγχη).]

About the author:

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.