King of the World

A Cautionary Xmas Fairy Story of a Boy Who Dreamt About Being King of the World

The Far-Off Fairy-Tale Land...

Once upon a time, in a kingdom in a far-off land, there lived a tubby, tousle-haired boy. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which accounted for his inability in later life to speak clearly without pausing or finishing sentences. He was a spoilt child with a rather vindictive streak. This manifested itself initially in what his parents dismissed as simply a lively sense of humour. They even nicknamed him “Big Joker”, which was soon shortened to BJ. But as he grew older BJ’s jokes would often turn into lies, to the point where even he himself never knew whether he was telling the truth or not, even when it came to the number of children he had fathered.

When he was still very small, BJ started to say that he wanted to be “King of the World”. (In fact, his parents were later to say that this was the first recognisable, coherent statement which BJ made.) His parents, who already owned half of the fairy-tale land in which they lived, thought this jolly funny, and encouraged the small boy to keep saying it. Little did they realise that in BJ’s mind it was becoming an obsession, and that as he grew older he began to craft his lies in such a way that the people who heard him would think that this dream was a possibility.

Even would-be kings of the world, however, have to leave the family home. BJ’s parents became sufficiently exasperated with him that they decided to pack him off to an expensive and exclusive boarding school. Indeed, the school was so exclusive that it’s name had been chosen so that no-one could find it on any map: E-10.

The exclusive school, E-10

Sending BJ away may have brought his parents some relief, but little did they realise that this was to bring him into contact with other boys who had similar dreams. At school, BJ quickly realised that this was the case, and he became skilled both at convincing some of the weaker ones that they should support him and at knifing in the back those who wouldn’t.

BJ bullied poor old Dopey Charlie (DCam), a battle which was to go on into adult life when BJ finally stabbed him in the back just as DCam thought that he was king of the world. BJ also took up with a chinless wonder, whom the boys called Just Ring Mummy (JRM). The other boys believed that they became friendly because only BJ and JRM could understand what each other was saying.

Somewhere along the way, BJ also befriended a boy they called My God! (MG; this was not because he thought he was God, but because the permanently surprised look on his face made everyone think this was what he was thinking whenever he came into contact with the real world.) A little later MG did attempt to stab BJ in the back; but, not being very bright, he used one of those stage knives where the blade goes back into the handle, so BJ was unharmed.

Somehow, despite his portly girth BJ had some success with the ladies; this was later thought to be because with his scruffy appearance many of them wanted to mother him (he was given hundreds of combs as presents, but never used any of them). One such woman was Awful Lady (AL) who even began every sentence she spoke with the words, “as a mother…” Then there was Practically Poisonous (PP); but he never got on well with Terribly Muddled (TM), so eventually stabbed her in the back.

The coup de grace for BJ, though, came when he met Devious Chap (DCum). Rumour had it that he had the word “chap” in his name to disguise the fact that he was, in fact, a robot; certainly he displayed no human emotion or feeling. And it was DCum, along with two other self-confessed “Bad Boys”, Awful Bastard (AB) and Nasty Fellow (NF) who engineered the plan for BJ to realise his dream and become King of the World.

They played on a specific trait they had noticed in BJ’s behaviour. Having already screwed half the female population of the country, DCum thought the obvious next step was to have him screw the whole country; and in the process BJ and his crew would become fabulously wealthy, while the people, duped by BJ’s lies, would think that they were better off…

NOT THE END…