SMOKE SIGNALS
A short story
By
LB Andrews
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
LB Andrews on Smashwords
Cover art by Alissa
Smoke Signals
Copyright © 2011 by LB Andrews
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Smoke Signals
Queen Jill knew King Jack was a cruel man. She watched him as he stood on the edge of the castle’s highest wall and addressed the subjects below. “I hereby decree that all subjects shall pay a new tax. The ones among you who refuse to pay shall die,” he proclaimed.
The queen heard the discontent begin to spread through the massive crowd as the subjects mumbled and complained to each other about what was sure to be a new death sentence, when suddenly the fervor calmed to quiet.
“Look! To the south!” someone yelled, pointing to a hill top across the valley.
“NO WAY,” a smoke signal floated up.
“What is this!” demanded the King. “What meaning is WAY?”
King Jack’s court of wisdoms, advisors, wizards, soothsayers and Jester, gazed at the smoke signal as it drifted above yon hill. They huddled to confer as the King stood waiting.
“We know not, King Jack,” the chief wizard admitted sheepishly.
King Jack narrowed his eyebrows at the wizard when suddenly another smoke signal rose from the hill.
“FORGET IT,” drifted up into the clouds above the hill.
“WHAT THIS IS!” the King demanded while striding back to the chief wizard. But chief wizard did not know and so lost his head with one slash from King Jack’s swift sword.
Somebody at the rear of the court turned to his friend and very quietly asked, “Can he not read?” His friend returned, “Right, the wizard can no longer read.”
“You’re Excellency! Look!” someone shouted.
“CHILL,” a new smoke signal said.
The court of King Jack drew down in horror as the king turned upon them to ask what the new smoke signal meant. As he raised his sword and opened his lips to condemn them he noticed their gaze drift from his face to the horizon beyond. He slowly turned.
“GET REAL,” the smoke signal said.
Furious, the King slung his sword and chopped off the two closest heads. “WHAT?” he screamed to the remaining court who stood poised to jump the wall and plunge to their deaths, when suddenly they straightened, looking past King Jack with horror.
“WHIMPO,” the smoke signal said.
King Jack whirled and held up his sword as his eyes turned fiery red.
“What is this meaning!” he demanded. After they briefly (very briefly) gazed at each other in horror, two of King Jack’s wizards along with three medicine men and four diviners, jumped over the castle wall in unison.
Although many of King Jack’s subjects below could not read, they began to connect the smoke signals with the sudden increase in heads and bodies, and heads without bodies, coming over the castle wall.
“Smoke signal equals jumping bodies,” somebody summed up. Each time a new smoke signal appeared the crowd began to look for new human body parts to come flying over the wall. The crowd began to cheer this orderly and predictable process.
“POUND SALT,” the next smoke signal said.
“WHAT IS THIS POUND!” King Jack was even more furious. He swished his sword about, chopping off head after head. By now, the entire court had turned its back on the horizon, unable to look at the smoke signals. But somebody peeked, and then read the next one aloud.
“JAM IT,” the smoke signal said.
“IS THIS AS JELLY?” the king demanded an answer. But before anyone dared answer, another one drifted up.
“TELL QUEEN JILL NO,” the smoke signal said.
Queen Jill was suddenly enraged. “You would do this? You would say NO to ME?” she asked King Jack, as the members of her court stepped forward and drew their swords on the King’s members. “Who is on yon hill?” she asked pointedly. “Who tells King Jack what words to speak?”
King Jack leaped forward and garnished his sword at her. “Speak another word and it will be your last, my Queen!” He held the tip of his bloody sword at her throat.
“LOOK!” someone shouted, interrupting the Queen’s death.
“FAMILY COUNSELING AVAILABLE,” the smoke signal said.
The royal couple dismissed the message in unison. “I call councils,” King Jack told his wife. “And I the family,” she replied, as they gazed at the smoke signal with contempt and just as it changed again.
“JILL FANCIES JESTER,” the smoke signal said.
King Jack’s Jester suddenly bolted toward the wall and jumped to his death.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” he screamed.
THUMP!
Jester would jest no more, nor ‘fancy’ the Queen – he was finished breathing too. Queen Jill wept upon hearing his fall.
“Ah hah!” King Jack shouted, as he drew back his sword. “He’s but a lowly Jester! A simple joke teller from the subjects! If you must betray me, find a more worthy man; one worthy of your head!”
King Jack sliced Queen Jill’s head from her shoulders with a mighty stroke.
But he was tiring of this game. He only needed a second to reach into his robe and press the thing called ‘button’.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The smoke-signal-sending hill top suddenly exploded. When the air cleared, the entire hill was gone. “Ah shit,” groaned the disappointed subjects below, as they wandered off.
But the King strode away smiling. As he did, he returned the wink of the Jester’s wife, the prettiest and sexiest Neutron Bomb Engineer in his court.
~ The End ~