The Absolut Throne

Chapter 1 -The City

The first sound of morning in this land is not birdsong. Birds are rare now, too often hunted for food or driven away by smoke from the fields and industrial factories. Instead, what wakes us is the groan of the state’s radio towers, their messages carried through the valley like iron chains rattling against our ears.

I wake to that sound every day, whether I want to or not.

The voice is always the same: mechanical, cold, and too loud for the hour. It drones about new quotas, revised taxation laws, announcements from the throne. I keep the radio low, pressed against the floor to muffle it, the neighbors hear the same orders in their homes. We all must. Turning it off risks a patrol charge, and those are punishable with more than fines.

My name does not matter here, but the one I remember is Anna because they always call me by this name.

I don't really care about my name. What matters is what I do, what I see, and what I remember.

I am a teacher. Or at least, what remains of one.

Our school is no grand institution. It is a lopsided building of wood and corrugated metal, patched with tar where the roof leaks.

The floor is earth, smoothed by countless bare feet. The windows have no glass, only wooden shutters that creak when the wind blows. The children arrive carrying slates of old wood to scratch lessons upon. Some share a single piece of chalk between them.

They laugh sometimes, though not like children should. Their laughter is thin, cautious, as though even joy must be rationed.

Hunger clings to them like a second skin.

We live off the rice we grow, though the king’s officials claim half the harvest before it ripens.

What remains must last through the season. Mothers water down broth until it is no more than flavored water. Fathers mend sandals with rope, then walk barefoot anyway. I have learned the art of cooking hunger into silence—stretching a handful of rice into a day’s worth of meals, pretending my stomach’s protests are only in my imagination.

I do not starve alone.

The children know what awaits them when they come of age. At eighteen, they are summoned to the city. Some are sent to factories where the light burns their skin pale, where machines grind louder than their screams. Others are given uniforms and rifles, swallowed by the military. None return.

I still remember the first class I taught, years ago—or was it decades?

Time blurs in this place. One by one, the desks emptied, names crossed from the registry as they were taken away. I tell the younger ones that knowledge is a weapon, that words can outlive kings. But sometimes, as I hand a boy his final lessons or correct a girl’s writing for the last time, my voice trembles.

What good is knowledge if it never survives the journey back?

At night, I dream of the Absolute Throne itself. A monstrous seat carved from black stone, high above the capital. Crimson banners drape from its arms like veins. I dream of the king, faceless and immense, dressed in golden cloth stitched from the people’s tears. Around him chant the parliament, their voices like a hive of insects, their mouths dripping with honeyed lies.

Always, the dream ends the same way: with silence. As though the entire land has stopped breathing.

When I wake, I press my hand against my chest to be certain my heart is still there. It beats, stubbornly, against the weight pressing down from the capital.

The foundation that keeps me alive does not pay me in coins. No one here is paid in coins anymore. Instead, we are called “blessed volunteers,” gifted with purpose rather than sustenance. Gratitude, the officials say, should be enough to fill our bellies. It does not. But it buys me time. And time, in this land, is worth more than gold.

The village itself is small, far from the city’s choking smoke. It should be peaceful, yet dread lingers here like a shadow. Patrol wagons arrive every month, demanding taxes, recruits, or sacrifices for the throne. I have seen neighbors beaten for failing to meet quotas. I have seen old men dragged away for daring to question them.

Rumors drift through the countryside like smoke, hard to hold, harder to forget. They speak of rebellion in the north, disease in the south. Farmers burning their own fields so officials cannot seize them. Mothers selling their last child to cults that promise salvation through blood.

Yes, the cults. They are growing bolder.

At first, they were only whispers—small gatherings, little offerings. A chicken, a goat. But hunger and despair are fertile soil for madness. Now I hear of human sacrifices, whole families giving themselves up to the fire. They believe God demands this suffering, that in surrendering flesh they are building themselves palaces in heaven. I cannot comprehend such faith, yet I see its roots everywhere. A neighbor missing. A barn burned down. A silence no one dares explain.

The world is unraveling, thread by thread.

And yet, every morning, I walk to the crooked schoolhouse. I draw letters on the board with trembling chalk. I tell the children stories from books long outlawed, hiding them beneath the floorboards when inspectors come. I remind them that empires crumble, that words can survive.

I say this because I must believe it. If I stop, if I allow despair to sink its claws too deep, there will be nothing left of me.

But each time another student leaves for the city, the silence grows heavier. I see their empty seats in my mind long after they’re gone. Sometimes I dream of them, walking in the dark, calling out for me, their voices swallowed by the void.

That is the cruelest part of being a teacher here. Not the hunger, not the fear, but the waiting. Waiting for the state’s carriage to come, waiting for another goodbye. Waiting, and knowing, they will never return.

The children do not know I cry when the sun sets. Alone in my room, I cover my face with my hands and let the grief spill out, quiet as rain. For two years now, I have dreamed of a different life: a family, laughter, a husband’s hand in mine. But these things are only phantoms. What I have instead are memories blurred and incomplete. Sometimes, I cannot even remember how I began this work. Was I chosen? Was I sent? Or did I choose this path myself? The past feels like mist, ungraspable.

Tonight, I will dream again—I can already feel it in my bones. The throne will rise before me, higher than mountains, darker than night. And perhaps this time, the dream will show me what must be done.

Because I cannot keep teaching these children lies about hope.

Not when I myself have begun to forget what hope feels like.