The Little King

“What will I be when I grow up?”

Growing up in the orphanage, this was a frequent question that came to Ekayan’s mind. It’s ceased haunting him in recent days, but every now and then he remembers the ayah’s voice telling him about his future.

“You’ll be a little king someday,” she would say while straightening his tie as he got ready for school. He adored her, and in his heart he knew that she liked him better than all the other boys. Thinking about that now made it sound foolish, since he was wise enough to know that it was her job to adore the little boys in the orphanage, and make them feel loved. He was wise enough to know now that she didn’t like him any more than any of the other boys who lived in that dingy room.

He was wise enough to know what life is, and therefore knew what he had to do as well. Wise enough to know that the ayah had lied, that he was not going to be a king – not with the name Ekayan.

As far as he could remember, he hated his name. The boys had always made fun of it, but he didn’t hate the name because of that. Maybe it was his link to the past, and he was desperately trying to run away from it. Being an orphan, he knew he could never get his past back, never have his real parents back – so he hated the one legacy they had given to him; his name.

For a long time, he waited for the day he would become king, because he knew that he could change his name to something better, something that he liked. After all, he would be king, and could do as he pleased. With that comforting thought, he went back to his quiet life, and learnt to take the abuse – verbal or otherwise – of the boys he grew up with. One by one, he saw the boys around him leave for a better place than the orphanage, always accompanied by grownups, but he knew he wouldn’t go with people like that. The king would be coming to take him someday, and he waited patiently for that day to come.

And so the years passed, with the little boy growing up at the feet of the caretakers and under the care of the ayah. Every morning, while the boys got ready and lined up for school, the headmaster of the little school sat regally on his chair reading the newspaper and sipping his coffee. One day Ekayan asked the ayah, “Does the King look like the headmaster? Does the King also read the newspaper and drink coffee every morning? Will I do that someday too?” but the ayah didn’t hear his question. Ekayan, however, took her silence for assent, and the image of the king changed in his mind since that day. Here was something tangible to hold on to, amidst all the dreams that he had conjured on the basis of the ayah’s simple answers (lies as they were); when he was a king, he too would read the newspaper and sip coffee every morning.

As with every group of children, secrets seldom stay secrets for long. Soon, everyone in the orphanage had heard the story of Ekayan and the Little King, and it wasn’t long before they started making fun of him for yet another reason. But Ekayan wasn’t the type who would rebel. Instead, he endured, holding on tightly to that dream of being the Little King that the ayah had promised he would be one day.

A smile escaped his lips as he thought of those moments, so far away into his past and yet so fresh in his memories. He wondered if he should have believed the boys instead of the ayah; maybe then his life would have been a little simpler. Maybe then, he might have realised how much his name held him back, and how much he wanted to escape it. Sadly, he didn’t possess the wisdom back then, and didn’t know how he could escape his name. But things had changed now, and he knew exactly what he had to do. He had all the things he would need for running away in the old tattered school bag – the headmaster’s chipped blue cup for drinking coffee (the one that he had stolen) and an old yellow copy of a newspaper (one that the boys had used to beat him on the head with, incidentally) for reading in the mornings when he would be the king he was supposed to be, had he not been born with the name Ekayan.

He slung the bag above his fifteen-year-old shoulders, and possessed with the wisdom that plagues teenagers looking for a way to escape, climbed the rickety stool in his room. One step closer to the ceiling; one step closer to getting away from his wretched name; one step closer to being the promised little king.

~

Inspired from Magpie Tales.