The Carnival King

Once, there was a King of Mirrors,

who ruled a kingdom split by glass.

On one side, fire marched in the streets—

soldiers in borrowed armor,

citizens howling like wolves caught in iron traps.

On the other, books bled ink,

hospitals crumbled into sand,

children traded laughter for coughs.

The King sat on a throne of television screens.

He spun their dials like fortune wheels,

watching the world stutter between

riot and ruin,

silence and siren.

He told his people: “It is all a show.”

And they believed—

some because they loved the spectacle,

some because their eyes had grown too tired

to pierce the glass.

But the mirrors began to crack.

Each lie etched a fracture,

each vanished promise

a splinter that spread across the palace walls.

Through the cracks,

the people glimpsed a darker truth:

not salvation, not rebuilding,

but a carnival collapsing,

its tents sagging with rain,

its lights sputtering in the wind.

Still, the King laughed.

He danced among the shards,

bleeding in secret,

pretending the music had not stopped.

And when the last mirror fell,

there was no kingdom,

no crowd,

no curtain call—

only the King,

clutching broken glass,

insisting to the shadows

that he had won.