HONORABLE MENTION, Winter 2025
The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition
BY MICHAEL HAIDEN
The king was snoring. He lay on his back, a thin stream of saliva running down his cheek—which was marked by a white scar where a blade had cut him many years ago—his breath coming in uneven rasps. He slept alone in his chamber. After he returned to the castle that morning, the queen had welcomed him in the courtyard and had then gone to sit by herself in the garden. The autumn breeze shook her but still she did not rise to follow him inside. Under a cloudy sky, she stared at the trees the king had planted for her fifteen years ago, on the day they were married.
What a man he’d been back then, we whispered. How strong, how fierce.
And what was he now, we asked?
Old. Defeated.
The queen squirmed in her seat.
We left her alone and returned to the sleeping king. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths. We knocked on his chamber door. He groaned, raised his head, dropped it on the pillow. We knocked again. This time he got up but when he opened the door he didn’t see us.
The king cursed and went back to bed.
He was not yet forty but his hair had started to turn gray. It had happened suddenly after his last battle, the one he lost. Only two months ago, he left the castle with five thousand men and the conviction that he’d return as a conqueror, the way he’d done his whole reign.
But this morning, he’d returned with only five hundred men. The rest had fallen—struck down by swords and axes, trampled under horses. Their broken bodies were still scattered across the field of his defeat. The king had left them behind after signing his surrender.
It was evening when the queen woke the king for the feast she’d organized.
“Why have a feast? There’s nothing to celebrate,” he told her.
“It is still your duty to attend.”
He cursed and crawled out of bed.
They left the chambers together, dressed in their finest clothing. The servants bowed when the royal couple passed, but they moved more slowly than before. We whispered around them about the king’s defeat and when he was out of sight the servants pulled disgusted faces.
The tables were set with meat and wine. The musicians played their harps, but nobody dared to dance or sing. Everyone ate and drank in silence.
We made the servant who brought his wine trip and spill it over the king. Only a year before, this would’ve gotten the servant whipped, but now the king just sighed and waved him away.
The king did not speak, nor did his wife.
But he drank. He emptied his cup and slammed it on the table, the sound deafening in the large, quiet hall, with its high ceiling and wide walls. A servant rushed to fill the cup. When the king looked away, we knocked it off the table. He called for another.
With weary eyes the king looked at his guests. They had gathered to eat and drink and show that they still believed in him. The wine turned his face red. We whispered in his ear, saying that everyone here plotted his death—including his wife.
He continued drinking to drown out our voices.
“Play me a song!” the king cried suddenly. “One about my victories!”
The singer, a young, beautiful man, stepped forward and began to sing. The king drank more wine and when the cup was empty, he threw it at the man.
It hit the singer on the forehead and caused him to stagger. He tripped over a pelt, made from a bear that the king had killed when he was only fourteen. He fell backward and hit the floor, his harp landing next to him.
For a moment, there was silence. The court held its breath, watching the king. Then, he roared with laughter. His voice echoed through the hall. Slowly, everyone joined in. First a chuckle, then nervous giggles, then open laughter. Loud bursts shook the hall which had been so quiet.
“Isn’t that a sight?” the king cried out. “Who can say anything against my throw? Mighty enough to kill boars and topple musicians with ease.”
Members of the royal court pointed at the singer, who laughed nervously as well, blood dripping from his forehead. The king leaned back and drank another cup of wine and his mighty hand rested on the queen’s thigh to squeeze it.
Soon he’d devise a new conquest and believe that this time, he would succeed. He was still alive and had men who’d fight for him.
All of us, more than four thousand men he’d abandoned on the battlefield, watched the king laugh. We, of course, would not forget the battle.
We still remembered the pain.
But our whispers helped us bear it.
We whispered our names as he drank. One by one, all the men he left behind. His laughter rose, desperate to drown us out. But we were inside him now. Inside his castle, his wine, even inside his dreams.
He might try to forget. But we would not let him.
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Michael Haiden is a research associate in economic and social ethics at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. Aside from academic research, he publishes op-eds on economics, politics and technology. His short story, “Possible Cats,” was shortlisted for the 2022 Quantum Shorts Award.
