Written for the Watermill Grimoire Project.

My palace has fallen, my subjects gone, but my family is with me. At least I have solace. I was from the Singa Raja Palace. I was King, I am King, but with no throne. “Call me Bamci.” He scratched his shoulder, his eyebrows turned inward with annoyance, the never-ending kind. “Sorry it itches. It always itches.” He stole a glance upwards and smiled at the ceiling above. “At least I need not fear more of the white bombs from the sky.”

Bamci went silent as if confused or lost, thinking on some minor thought. “The itching, it is so much at times it fuddles. Please sit and talk awhile.” Taking lead, Bamci sat cross-legged on his glass stand. “It’s not the most comfortable, but it suits my needs. I’ve come to…respect what little I have. Where was I? Yes, you are correct, I was speaking on my kingship. It was a splendid palace, as all palaces should be, in the grand country of Indonesia. I spent a good four hundred years there before my travels took me here.”

A bit of green dust brushed from his knee, Bamci leaned forward and rested his elbow against his leg, and with his hand cupping his chin. Regal some would say, with the gentle glaze of the indifferent eye. If it wasn’t for the decay of his bronze skin, one might believe his foolish pose. “Those were good days, but we have cheerful company now. The Archive suits me and my wife Rajni, and the skies can no longer spit their venom. Oh, what I would do for a cloth.”