Temporary Monarchs

Who will be the next…ladies and gents say it with me…Temporary Monarch?

Prologue.

Temporary Monarchs: the most followed gameshow of all time. Every family tunes in once a year to watch it, but not mine, not this time.

It was yesterday when my brother threw my bedroom door open and hurled one of my stuffed animals at me.

‘Look up.’ He said.

‘What do you want?’ I asked him, eyes still glued to my laptop. The best way to make sure he left me alone was to give him little to no attention. He gets bored alarmingly fast, even of bothering me.

‘Look. Up.’

I groaned but closed the laptop. ‘All right, you have my undivided attention for the next five seconds. Make it quick, and it better not be gross, or I’ll-’

‘Oh my God, you sure love hearing yourself talk. I wanted to surprise you, but here, take it and shut up. I’m out of here’

He left a ticket on my bed, but I grabbed it after he left my room, in case he was using it to distract me to then prank me. Like, maybe the ticket was a distraction, he would wait for me to grab it and while my guard was down, he’d, I don’t know, push me off my bed and take my laptop, threatening to give it back only if I agreed to do his chores for the next two weeks.

It has happened before.

But when I examined the ticket, I was surprised to see it was golden, with a translucent crown, and a sword going through it. Two silver wreaths marked each side of the ticket, and at the bottom, in bold, cerulean letters, sitting on a cerulean platter, a sentence that I had only ever heard of, but never seen with my own eyes.

We summon the court, and therefore as its member, ask for your attendance, next autumn equinox at the royal palace, to assist the coronation of our next Temporary Monarch.

I screamed and ran out of my room after my brother.

‘Milo? Milo!’ I shouted and entered into his room. ‘Where did you get this from?’

‘I have my ways.’

‘Is it real?

‘Of course its real. I bought it from the official website, along with three other ones, for me and mum and dad.’

‘The official website?’ I paused. ‘Please tell me you didn’t kill or rob someone.’

‘Relax. I have a buddy that works for the show. Nothing major, he just does the makeup for the contestants. Anyway, he gets free tickets, but this year he couldn’t go…’

‘So we get to go.’ I said, finishing his sentence.

Part One.

The twenty-first of September came surprisingly fast. As per tradition, we dresses up in medieval outfits. I went all out, making most of the clothes myself, and yes, I did spend most of the past days sewing.

I wore a long, linen chemise beneath a pastel pink floor-length tunic. In true French fashion, I made sure the tunic fitted me loosely, adding a flaring skirt and trumpet-like sleeves, meaning they were tight to the elbow and widened at the wrist. I then tied a white belt above my waist, that sported fuchsia tassels.

‘Wow, you went all out!’ My mother exclaimed as I walked down the stairs. She had put her hair up in a twist, wore one of those tiaras brides to be bore at their bachelorette parties, along with a cream corset and a baby blue knee length skirt.

Milo and dad wore- let’s not talk about it. I wasn’t remotely surprised at their lack of interest towards dressing up properly. After all, why sew for weeks when you can get cheap medieval costumes at Poundland?

Part Two.

While we , or rather my dad, drove, we began reminiscing on past gameshow episodes we had watched at home, and talked about our favourite ones.

‘I liked the environmentalist one of a few years ago.’ I said. 

Milo rolled his eyes. ‘Of course you did. I Liked the one who got rid of university tuition debts for that year. I sure could use that right now.’

‘My favourite was that guy that couldn’t point out where our country was on a world map.’ Mum said as she laughed.

‘Wait, when was this?’ Milo asked.

‘Oh, it must have been a good five years before you and your sister were born.’ My father replied. ‘He won as well, I’m not sure how. He was terrible, said some wild things, but he got everything in the sports category right.’

‘Why did he take part then?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I believe he said he was out of a job and had been for a while, every interview he did just seemed to go wrong, so he thought he’d attempt this, to make some cash.’

‘Oh honey.’ My mum asked him, ‘wasn’t he the one who said our planet is flat and that global warming doesn’t exist?’

‘Oh- Yes, he was! I completely forgot about that. What an absolute idiot.’

‘That’s… disturbing. How the hell did he win?’ I asked again.

‘I believe the better contestant got hurt in the physical competition part of the show, so he won by default. He was a terrible Temporary Monarch, messed everything up.’ He paused as he looked for a place to park. ‘Maybe I should sign up for next year. I’d definitely beat all of them, too bad I’m not interested in politics to actually become a Temporary Monarch.’

‘That’s actually insane. Maybe they should ask for some qualifications or we should change the hiring process. It’s a pretty important job.’

‘Oh, lighten up Willa.’ Mum said. ‘They only last for a year, and then someone better comes along usually. Can you imagine if we had to vote? It would take forever! We’d have to get registered… no it’s better this way. It’s how it’s always been.’

Maybe I was wrong about this show.

Part Three.

A midnight blue runner decorated with eggshell fleur-de-lys ran through the whole length of the aisle, between the two court seating sections. We were seated on the right, but each side had the same armchairs with red velvet cushions. A fake crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the walls were decorated with plastic columns and a wallpaper with the same blue and white pattern as the rugs, to give you the feeling of a real castle.

We faced a round, stone table on the corner of the stage, as we awaited the presenter and the contestants to arrive, and on it, sat a golden, plastic crown, with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires paint over it, along with a white satin sash, that read ‘Temporary Monarch’ in large, sparkly rainbow letters.

Suddenly the room darkened, and a single light spot appeared in the middle of a stage, and a trumpet fanfare played form the speakers in the room.

As the presenter, dressed as the court jester, wearing a pointy, red, and green hat, decorated with bells, and a matching outfit, cartwheeled onto the stage, the whole crowd cheered, and clapped. I always found this part hilarious, but no matter how hard I tried, this time it didn’t make me laugh. I clapped anyway, not wanting to stand out.

‘Welcome to Temporary Monarchs.’ The presenter-jester bellowed. ‘A gameshow unlike any other. I am your host Jess Devon and here’s how our show works. Our contestants will take part in a series of activities, with tasks that our players have never seen before, accumulating points. The winner will be crowned at the end of the episode and they get to rule our nation for the next year.’ He paused, like every year, to add a dramatic effect or something, to then speak again:

‘Oh, and they get a nice shiny crown and a sash!’ And, as if on cue, the whole crowd erupted in laughter.

Once the crowd quieted down again, Jess Devon introduced the contestants.

‘Tonight! a man who lost a bet and thus had to sign up to go on this show, it’s Finn Hudson!’

A man of around the age of seventy ran in, wearing these bright green suspenders that matched his shoes, tie, and hat and waved at the crowd, before sitting on the throne on the far left, which was a larger copy of the seats the crowd had.

‘Another, who comes from a long line of Temporary Monarchs, it’s James Adams!’

Another man came in, with a head of the lightest hair, and a thick, white beard. He bowed to the audience before taking his seat to the right.

‘And finally, Liam Terrell, who has a both an undergraduate and a PhD in politics.’

The third man marched in and sat on the throne in the middle.

I looked at the three contestants, who all looked the same. Has this game always been like this? Played by clones of the same, old white men, who would probably give the same wrong answers and only excel at the pointless categories such as fishing and football? Had the past Temporary Monarchs that I had liked been like this as well? How could I have been so blind for so long?

‘They’re all here to find out, ladies and gents say it with me…’

Who will be the next Temporary Monarch!

I was the only one who didn’t join in.

Part Four.

First up: the trivia section. Sports, as always was the contestants favourite category. Sure, they might not know which flag is ours, but of course they know who won the 1973 World Cup of an obscure sport no one has ever heard of.

The funniest, and perhaps saddest and most pathetic moment was James Adams not remembering what year his own father had been Temporary Monarch.

Then there’s the talent show. They all had the same one: lifting things and throwing them around.

In the meantime, I looked up the past Temporary Monarchs. They were pretty much all the same, in terms of appearance, background, views…

I wasn’t even sure who I was rooting for. Definitely not Hudson, who barely knew where the house of parliament was. Adams only expected to win because of his family name, and was barely trying, and then there’s Terrell, who while being qualified had some shocking policies.

‘My policies are traditional ones.’ He declared, during his turn in the interview section. ‘I believe it is shocking the lack of religious people in our country.’

‘This is a secular nation.’ I muttered. Someone in my row hushed me.

‘What happened to Sunday mass?’ he continued ‘What happened to modest clothing? To young couples settling down, instead of “experiencing life.”?’ He exaggeratedly did air commas for this last part. ‘We need to teach our children these values, like we were taught them. We need to teach them the sacredness of marriage, the strength of faith. I, myself, have already done so with my children, and will continue to do so with my future ones.’

‘Future ones?’ Jess Devon asked him.

‘Yes. I have six children, but my current wife is pregnant with twins.’

‘Congratulations seem to be in order then. So were you a widower, Mr Terrell?’

‘My, how forward.’ I heard my mother whisper to my dad, as they waited for Terrell to answer. But I already knew what he was going to say.

‘No, I wasn’t, my ex-wife and I separated amicably, but I really do believe in the power of marriage, which is why I decide to get married again, and also to give my kids a mother.’

Typical.

***

Unsurprisingly, Terrell won. He was the one who got most questions right. He happily sat on his throne as Jess Devon crowned him and declared he was now a Temporary Monarch.

He rose from his seat and bowed before us, still smiling. Assuring us he was going to be an unforgettable one. I believed him.

The lights turned back on, and the audience slowly started pouring out from each aisle unceremoniously. But I stayed seated. I stared at them as they left, at Terrell and Devon as they talked. I had never felt so helpless.

‘Well, it’s time to go home. Are we leaving anything behind? Willa? Willa! Are you listening?’ My mother waved a hand before my eyes, snapping me back to reality. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I- I think I’m going to sign up for this.’

‘What?’

‘Once I graduate. I’ll sign up, and I will win, but I will be the last person that gets elected this way.’

My mother laughed, but I had meant it.

And I did it. I switched degrees and graduated early, only so I could come here again, but this time I was the one on the stage, sitting on the middle throne, Terrell’s throne. He sat beside me, hoping to win for the fourth time.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Temporary Monarchs…’