King Midas II

• Laine Walker, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2018

He looks down at his hands. They are stained red with a liquid that every creature knows: blood. It drips, sticky and thick. Each drop lands on the ground, landing with a loud beat, like someone pounding on a timpani. His heart lurches each time he hears the sound, his throat filling with bile.

He understands what Macbeth felt like; no matter how much he scrubbed his skin, it would forever be covered in blood. That there was so much on his hands that even the ocean would turn red at him simply dipping a nail into the salty water.

Thinking of Macbeth, he began to think of another king. King Midas, the man who anything he touched, it turned to solid gold.

The man ponders if when Midas touched these things, if he saw them tinted red, perhaps a light shade of rose gold, while the rest of the world saw the things turn to yellow gold. He wondered how Midas felt when he turned people to gold. Was he aware that he was basically killing them until they could be resurrected with water?

The man reaches to grab his pipe, wincing when it drips blood in his hands.

There was no good side to what he had. Midas at least could become rich, make his kingdom rich.

He could only turn things to something dreadful. It was a curse, honestly and truly. There was no good side to it, nothing to hide behind. There was nothing to prove he wasn't a monster.

Sometimes when he looks in the mirror he imagines himself with horns growing out the sides of his head, long talons protruding from the tips of his fingers and sharp teeth crowding his mouth, filling it. Sometimes he feels as though he has so many teeth it interrupts his breathing.

He sighs, aware of how the breath snags on his imaginary teeth.

He realises what the worst thing is about his curse; no one else can see what he does. No one notices the blood. He thinks of that Stephen King book he read once, It, the one with the scary clown. He recalls the kids could see things that no one else could. Things that no one believes. Things that no one hears. Things that no one can feel. Things that weren't really there.

He places the pipe loosely between his lips, breathing through it. The smoke fills him, coursing through his veins. For a few precious seconds, the blood isn't there. He's just a normal man leading an average life, doing ordinary things.

Then he blows the smoke out before he runs out of breath. The blood returns. He grimaces at the sudden change.

King Midas II, sitting at home, smoking his pipe.