II

The Prince, however, did not.

While his academic background had not included any fancy liberal arts college, he was well read, and spent many hours delving through the electronic media and information networks. His vocabulary was extensive. So, while at this particular moment he stood there sullenly as drops from the leaky roof of his throne room splashed on his head( for his castles building and ground department simply refused to work without the inspiration of their beautiful queen) one can only imagine the parade of words, from the vaguely offensive to the truly pornographically insulting, that were running through his head.All of them were directed most poignantly at his soon to be ex-wife. A king could not take this kind of talk, and maintain the respect of his court. Not with this woman still alive.

In all actuality, on a subconscious and unbalanced level, he had already been planing for months on murdering his bride when she next came home. It was all very embarrassing for him, of course. While he was the king, he also maintained a stable-hand alter-ego named Herbert. He had been doing this for as long as he could remember. Or, to be precisely technical about it, he could not remember at all. The two parts of his life, while once carefully and consciously maintained, had now run rampantly different courses, and the two personalities had very little clue of the others existence. When he was king, Herbert's desires lurked in his subconsciouses, unknowingly tainting his decisions as king. When he was Herbert, the king tried desperately, if rather feebly, to break free of the physiological manacles that Herbert managed to place him under whenever he was in charge. If it is not quite apparent to you, dear reader, let me say it plain. Herbert was winning. and Herbert was in love with a tree named Fanny.

His love had been growing steadily for several years, and had gotten to the point where the king himself would find himself, on idle walks with one of his boy-courtesans, beneath that very tree, with surprisingly little interest in the boy. This vexed him, but he gave it off as another byproduct of the departure of his lovely wife.

That lovely wife, who turned out to be an ungrateful feminist strumpet, he thought to himself , once again enraged. She will die for her insulin.
or was it insolence?
and, like a child, he was distracted suddenly by a brightly colored butterfly that landed on the nearby head of his current favorite boy, and he pranced after it gleefully (whether it is the boy or the butterfly he is prancing after is left to the readers own tendencies).

Herbert was delighted, and thought furiously (so the king couldn't hear, of course) about how he was going to get the queen back to the castle and how he would ultimately destroy her. But all the while he kept the shiny image of Fanny blazing in his mind. Soon, my love, he thought. Soon nothing will keep us apart. It will be Fanny and Herbert forever.