Once I was a King

He rode the bus, glaring out the dirty window at the streets blurring past. This? This is what it had come to? Years washed past as the bus droned on, his seat bouncing beneath him at the slightest bump in the road. Countless years, fading at the edges of memory, reaching back beyond cars and buses and skyscrapers and walls and wheels and men, into the deep dark forests that used to march across every corner of the earth. He pulled his jacket tighter about him. Yes, he had ruled once. Once, but that was long ago. Things were different.

He fingered absently at the crow swooping down his hand, one wing brushing the knuckle of his thumb, the other reaching toward his middle finger. It was green-blue with age now, though the skin that bore it was still a smooth, golden brown. Once, he had been the King of Noontime. Now, he rode the bus. Now, he stalked the night, trapped in an endless bitter swirl of his own regrets. He understood it was his fault; he understood that. He should have kept a better eye on the rise of Man, but it was an insidious thing, and already his anger was dimming in a wave of helplessness.

"All things have their time in the sun," he murmured. At least the rule of men was short; they buzzed like flies for a few moments and then died noisily, to be swept away by the rushing tide of history. That was the way of Man, and that was the way of the world. Time stopped for no-one. But he and his bretheren existed out of the flow of time; it was their reward and their ultimate punishment. Accumulating years, faithful keepers of History, bearing eternal witness to each spin of that wretched blue ball. The bus came to a shuddering halt and wheezed black smoke into the air.
"End of service," came the gruff, disinterested voice of the driver from the front.

The city streets were grey and blue in the twilight as he stepped off, and Solaris felt the sea of his years accutely. He took long, loping strides towards the nearest bar. His hatred had burned and then simmered down into a smoulder again, leaving him hollow. He would have oblivion that night, one way or another. A small death, all too brief, but enough to douse the flame, for a little while at least. He sat down at the bar.
"Whiskey please. Neat." One way or another.