Canto Forty-Six: War Upstairs, Love Downstairs:

More of them keep coming every day. My subjects complain about being overworked. What am I supposed to do about that? I can’t stop people from dying. I didn’t start this war. They are always happening. This one just happens to be one of the worst ones.

The phone rang by my bed. I grumbled to myself as I felt around for it. Again? Couldn’t they at least wake until I got out of bed?

“Hello?” I asked.

“Your highness!” one of my subjects said over the other line. “We have a problem.” I groaned aloud. Seriously? Again? Why can’t they figure this out on their own? I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

“Fine, I’ll be there,” I said.

“Oh thank you so much!” they said. I rolled my eyes as I hung up. Why do I get these? I turned and looked at my wife sleeping next to me. Madonna looked so peaceful lying there. I envied her. She didn’t have to do anything around my kingdom. I leaned and kissed her on the forehead.

“I’ll be back,” I whispered. I climbed out of bed, got dressed, and slipped out of the room.

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I had no idea how bad it would be. Souls were standing outside my gates, shouting. How the hell…? How did it get this bad?

I just had to ask that out loud.

“How did it get this bad?!” I asked. Two of my subjects had sheepish looks on their faces. They nervously chuckled as I glared at them.

“Guys?” I asked. One of them looked down at his feet.

“They just keep coming,” the other subject said. “The system can’t keep up.”

“Didn’t I tell you to do the update?” I asked.

“The update?” the first subject asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Did you not follow my directions?” The looks on their faces told me all that I needed to know. I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

“Take me to the main office,” I said. My subjects led me to my office across the kingdom. This took me hours to sort out this mess. I knew this system wasn’t going to work. I made it as simple as possible to them. I even drew it out for them on a blackboard. And my subjects still fucked it up. I don’t know how this happened. I will have to try and figure out another way to keep things running smoothly. It didn’t help that this war was getting worse.

Because of this, I spent most of the day in the office. How did the paperwork get so backed up? Paperwork went as back as September 1940. What the hell? This shouldn’t have gotten that bad. Where was Beelzebub?

“He’s trying to clear out the system at the gate, my lord,” another subject said. I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

“Do you want me to call him up?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s fine.” The subject raised his eyebrow.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said. The subject put up his hands.

“Okay, okay,” he said. He turned and walked away. I sat back in my chair and sighed. How could I think this wasn’t going to go smoothly. Looked like I was going to have to take more active role. I looked over at my paperwork. This was going to take me days to get through. Looked like I wasn’t going to have to pull an all-nighter. I just wanted to disappear.

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The nights were all I had now. Sometimes, I wouldn’t make it back in time. I barely got to see my son as it was. But when I did make it home, I was too tired. That didn’t matter. I was just happy to have my wife by my side. Even so, I still worried about how long that would last.

“I want another child,” I said one night. Madonna looked down at me.

“What?” she asked. I looked into her eyes.

“Please?” I asked. I leaned up and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t respond. I couldn’t tell her the real reason. She would say no. Call me selfish, but I couldn’t let her go. She rested her hand on my shoulder.

“You’re just tired,” she whispered. “Just sleep.” I didn’t have it in me to argue with her. I closed my eyes and went to sleep. Still, I wasn’t going to give up on my plan or my family. I was going to work on her and fix the system. I wasn’t going to give up so easily.