20 July 2022
Bingol Royal Palace
Was It Worth It?
The sun seemed to shine and the people of the city of Bingol seemed to go about their day ignorant of the busy and quiet work being undertaken by diplomats and politicians in the great halls of power. At the apex of the political organisation was the Bingol Royal Palace, a royal residence cum citadel cum public ornament that had been built and rebuilt over thousands of years as the residence and seat of the ruler of the biggest nation on Urth and the temporal head of arguably its largest religion.
Here, Prince Abuyin sat in the Court of the Rivers. Although the Imperial Family had moved in after the end of the Second Packilvanian Civil War and many of its rooms had been modernised and replaced with modern amenities, the palace was feeling like a museum. More of its rooms, halls and gardens were opened to the public for small tours that took months to plan, to catch a glimpse of the artefacts and architecture of the building that gave a sense of what the imperial family and ruling elite were about. For those who only came here for a few hours perhaps once in their lives they saw splendour and tradition. For those who inhabited its stone walls and ceramic floors, the building looked tired. It seemed old and out of place in a city where skyscrapers we’re reaching for the sky and trains as fast as anything swept millions from pillar to post.
Even the religion of his forefathers that had empowered the Carriers to continue their fight against the evil Communist Party seemed more of a prison created by old people to subdue the young. Prince Abuyin had chosen his life in this old tired museum, instead of love and joy with the one person he cared about the most, all because they were biologically male. Yet, he deserved no pity nor did he ask for it. He chose to abandon his love and blame them for what happened, leaving guilt and bitterness in his wake. He chose to let the love of his life be clad in chains and thrown in prison.
He said to himself, “Noi, my Goddess, please forgive me for my sins!”
There was nothing. Just silence. Not cold silence like a faraway mountain inhabited by birds and the wind. Silence like the complete and utter desolation of the whole world. “Noi is not speaking to me”, Prince Abuyin said to himself. He held his chest. He wanted to cry and weep, but there was nothing. The voice of Noi had finally grown quiet. No warm reassurance that things would be okay or a sense of fulfillment that his sins had been forgiven. There was just silence, a deep and unspeakable sense of nothing.
“I am not a man. I am a ghost. Noi has left me. And I will burn for my sins for all eternity”, he said to himself.
His secretary called to him as he had instructed her to do after an hour sitting alone in the Sultan Zygros the Great’s Majhid of the Contemplation, a small temple located on the western wing of the palace where the imperial family often met for prayers on a Saturday. He left and entered his car, preparing for the visit of the President of United Malordia and the diplomatic and military arrangements that would follow therefrom.