Januariad

I’m surprised they made me the King of Atlantis. Mother’s always saying I’m retarded and it always seemed like kings in books weren’t retards. I don’t really know how you tell if a king’s a retard though. Maybe all kings are. Maybe Mam was trying to tell me I was going to be a king some day. To get me ready.

I was in the back garden cleaning my bike and three men from Atlantis walked up and introduced themselves. They were people-shaped with flippers for hands that looked like plastic bags and their heads looked a bit like human heads with plastic bags over them and holes for eyes and mouth. They had voices like boys. One of them sounded a bit like Kevin.

The Atlanteans shook my hand very seriously and told me I had been chosen by their people as the new king. Their hands felt a bit plasticy. I wasn’t sure they were telling the truth until the seaman with the voice like Kevin took a rolled-up paper out of his bag and showed it too me. It was an official decree from the Court of Atlantis. There was a blob of red candle on it. They gave me a biro and I signed the bottom before they could change their minds. Everything happened very fast.

Then we all cycled out to the docks. The Atlanteans had bikes and I brought my bike too, even though I wouldn’t be bringing it to Atlantis. One of the seamen told me he would bring it home to my mother.

At the docks they brought me to a metal lid covering a hole near the water. ‘This is the secret tunnel to Atlantis,’ said the one with the voice like Kevin. I was very excited. I looked out over the bay and imagining the bright, beautiful city under the water. ‘But first, the coronation!’

A coronation is when they make you into a king. One of the seamen took a cloak and staff out of his bag. The staff was a seaweed stick and the cloak was a magical Atlantean material that looked like plastic. I knelt on the dock wall and the seaman with the voice like Kevin knotted the cloak around my collar and put the staff in my open hand. ‘I now pronounce you King of Atlantis!’ he said. Then he took a crown out of his bag and put it on my head. It was blue and green and very beautiful.

When the coronation was over we opened the metal cover. It took all four of us to lift it off the hole. A ladder went down the side into the dark. The seamen gave me a little torch and a magical Atlantean bag filled with bananas and a loaf of Brennans bread. They told me they had work to do on the surface land, but that they would follow me to Atlantis soon. I climbed down the hole and they pushed the lid closed after me.

It’s very dark in Atlantis. It must be nighttime here when it’s daylight above the waves. The little torch stopped working after a few minutes. I made my way along the road for a long time, but now I’ve lost my sense of direction. I don’t want to walk the wrong way. My feet are wet and it smells funny. I’m eating bananas and waiting for morning. I’m very excited.