The kingdom was mine once nailed to the wall. I was a king maligned. I was a surgeon who met death, pulled rank, and excised the space death was taking. With the doubled right hand of reason, I authored my quiet army. When she burned in the square, my daughter made a mess of her tongue and coughed herself to death. I taught her what mattered, didn’t I? I was an elemental father, consolidating the most wayward planets. I was a starstruck husband, groping at the hem of the sky, the unsullied air caged in my sleeve. Before that, I took my vows with a simple slash of snowy cake. But somebody must become the confessor in a wooden box, straining against the roof of disguise. Every version of the world will suffer until the construction of my home is complete. I blasted the door clean from its frame in order to touch the heart of the child that knew my face. I was a good man.