The Boar

If they had only known how unhappy he'd been for the last dozen years, none of this would have been necessary. The vigils every night, and the young people wriggling over the gates like seals, only to be dragged onto the grounds and beaten.

He had tried to put an end to that, at least, but the Minsiter of Internal Affairs had said that would be the gravest mistake of all. Any softening, any loosening of the hold on power, would be taken for weakness. And when your enemy found a weakness in you, he feasted on it and became stronger. He talked like he was Minister of War, always drunk with metaphor.

It bothered him no end. He was weak. And tired. This was wrong. This. Everything. The young men at the gates. What they said about him in the dissident newspapers that grew like mushrooms. His aide-de-camp brought them home after his clandestine trips through the darkened streets. "The Boar" they called him, and savaged him with caricatures. Always, tusks curved from his jaw. He looked at himself in the mirror every time to try and find it. Hoping to find why they hated him so much.

His father had dismantled much of the previous century's oppressive apparatus. And hadn't he undone most of the rest? He would be remembered as the weakest of them all, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. They hated him with their blood, with centuries of grievances pushing them on, choking them full of bitter wind. When the crowds had first gathered outside the palace three months ago, he had tried talking to them, from the balconies. They jeered and spat. They didn't care what he had to say. Internal Affairs wouldn't let him say anything now. "Strength is your ally." More ancient wisdom. Fire couldn't help a drowning man.