Knight to flash 4

My entry this week is so bad, it's like the World Trade went down.

"Looking at it from your/their/his/her point of view, then yeah, I would be pissed also." Does anybody remember laughing at the Brundlefly/telepod mashup, no of course you youngins don't. Well hell that was only three, I quietly thought to myself at the time. A low-volume thought hides well from overly interested ears and, for the initiated, is a treasure easily found amidst the general cacophony of the addled mind, unaided by the dissonance of day-to-day shellshock. But it takes practice --

"Here he goes again."

"Johnny! Be nice to your grandpa!"

-- long hours of blood and sweat, metaphorical of course, because who bleeds when they're thinking unless they've been shot, blown to bits or worst of all, removed from the board? So get started now, kids. Where was I? Oh, yes.

Doesn't mean my fellow minion wasn't right.

"Is that what you told her at the time?"

I don't know. Even when I had the chance, I don't know.

I can't remember.

It was hard to discern her exact words so far back in the line. I crawled closer, crossing a square of surprisingly crater-free Yorkshire fog, sharing black quips of trench foot and our inevitable end. Momentarily safe behind its four walls, we didn't get even one, impatience continued creeping from the castle denizens -- we felt it, your/their/his/her waiting with baying, accusatory breath. My comrade spoke again, one last time, a short lull in the exchanging fusillades permitting her whisper to reach my tired ears.

"You know that feeling when you wake up sweating and think 'thank goodness it was only a dream'?" We longed for that feeling as an ecclesiastical enclave rushed past, soon followed by a whirling, feminine blur. Our eyes met, exhausted globes haphazardly streaked in crimson, soon led off to who-knows-where, prisoners-of-that-godforsaken-war.

In the distance I saw all kinds of birds circling over something, but I couldn't tell what from where I was. As our conquerors, with a funereal sloth, marched us past the carnage, we saw, at last, we saw.

"Grandpa, what did you see?"

The king was dead. Long live the king.