The Accidental King of Achoo Read online

  The

  Accidental

  King

  of Achoo

  Linda J. Falkner, LMHC

  The Accidental King of Achoo

  Copyright © 2017 Linda J. Falkner, LMHC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  ISBN: 978-1-5320-2203-6 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-5320-2204-3 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017909478

  iUniverse rev. date: 08/10/2017

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  Prologue

  The Accidental King of Achoo is the story of a wealthy man with an obsession to win at all costs. He participates in a competition to become king, even though he appears to have no chance of winning and has no qualifications for the position. Although this story may parallel many modern-day events, it is in no way meant to reflect a real person or real situation, and any likeness is purely coincidental. It was written only for entertainment, and if you get a few laughs from it, so much the better.

  Chapter 1

  Once upon a time, in a faraway land, Jeremiah Abadon, a tall and thin, highly sexual confidence man with slicked black hair and a handlebar mustache, was traveling on horseback. His musket was clearly visible in its holder around his waist. Abadon was thinking about himself, assessing his charisma and charm, as his horse ambled through the countryside. Walking behind him were his forty-two wives, countless children, an Indian princess, African slaves, horses, and several large furry mutts.

  “Hurry up. You are all dawdling too much,” Jeremiah Abadon complained to his wives.

  His wives told him that the children were hungry and tired and that they could not walk any farther. They begged him to let the children ride the horses.

  “I don’t want to tire the horses. The children ate all the stale bread yesterday. I don’t see why we have to feed those useless brats every day. They are lazy and happy to be cared for without contributing anything. I suppose next you’ll want to feed them meat from the deer I shot,” Abadon whined. “If they can’t walk, then you must carry them. The slaves can hold the reins and lead the horses.”

  And so it was. Jeremiah Abadon was looking for a new place to live, where no one knew him. Jeremiah was disliked and distrusted, but he was also very wealthy. He had had numerous careers, none of which had been honest. He had made a fortune selling various “health potions,” which were nothing more than colored sugar water. Jeremiah claimed that red sugar water could cure heart problems, blue would take away the blues, and so on. He had lived in several towns, and after a short time in each new town he had fled, narrowly escaping arrest. Once, he left in the middle of the night after learning that certain nefarious people, whom he had cheated, were planning to tar and feather him and then hang him from an old oak tree.

  Eventually, Jeremiah Abadon heard from one of his many spies that he was about to be arrested once again. Consequently, he fled from his most recent home, taking with him his forty-two wives, countless children, an Indian princess, African slaves, horses, and dogs. He had decided that he was tired of running, and thus he was looking for a new land in which to settle and make a fresh start with innocents who would be willing to trust him.

  Before they left their previous home, each wife had filled her backpack with gold nuggets stored carefully in plastic Trupperware containers with lids. The travelers brought little else besides a change of clothes and a variety of seeds, including hops and barley, to plant in their future home. Jeremiah carried nothing but his musket. After traveling forty days and forty nights, but still not finding the perfect place to settle, the fleeing nomads stumbled on an undiscovered valley surrounded by nearly impenetrable mountains.

  “Look at that waterfall,” one of the children exclaimed. Water ran from high up the mountaintop, splashing on the rocks below and catching the noon sun to form a double rainbow.

  “I think I see something behind it,” another sharp-eyed child shouted.

  “There is a small opening between the mountains. It looks like a valley,” a woman called out.

  These explorers were the first people to discover the hidden passageway. To get inside the valley, they had to walk, leading the horses single file, across treacherous moss-covered rocks made slippery by the stream that formed from the water at the base of the falls.

  “I’m slipping off the rocks,” a woman screamed.

  “I can get you.” One of the larger male slaves reached into the water and helped her to safety.

  A small cocoa-brown boy, the child of a slave, slipped into deeper water and nearly drowned. “Help my son,” the boy’s father yelled. He reached into the water as several other men formed a human chain, holding on to the father and each other.

  “He’s not breathing. Slap his back,” someone called. The child gasped and began crying. The travelers cheered.

  A few other people slipped but made narrow escapes. No one except Jeremiah Abadon, who was on horseback, got over the rocks while remaining dry. A generous soaking refreshed the weary group, and they dried quickly under the blistering sun.

  “We must be grateful that everyone got over the rocks alive. We need to thank God.” Jeremiah Abadon led them in prayer. “Thank you, God, for giving these people Jeremiah Abadon, who, like Moses, has brought them safely to a new land.”

  Meandering through the valley, the travelers came upon a forest of trees that caused extreme sneezing. No one really knew why the trees caused this reaction, although some thought it had to do with their strange, oily sap that caused their pollen to become irritating. The travelers named them sneeze trees. By the time they reached the other side of the forest, the travelers were all sneezing violently. The sound of Jeremiah Abadon and his entourage, including the horses and dogs, all sneezing from oily sneeze tree pollen echoed across the mountainside. Achoo, achoo, achoo! After that, the travelers began calling the valley Achoo as a joke, but the name caught on, and they kept it.

  The stream they were following joined a spring, bubbling with ice-cold water, to form a river that flowed through the land. There was no need for rain or snow to nourish the flowering meadow, because beavers built dams that flooded the land with spring water. Animals and plant life flourished, and the scent of honeysuckle was carried on a warm breeze.

  “Look at those birds.
Their colors are so brilliant,” the Indian princess said. Macaws—some blue, others red and gold—were flying through the trees. A strutting male peacock, with his open tail feathers forming a brilliant fan, was surrounded by ash-gray peahens. The Indian princess found a couple of blue macaw feathers and placed them in her hair.

  “Shh, listen to the birds sing,” someone said. The sound of canaries and small songbirds filled the air with soft, melodic chirps.

  “Look, deer and antelope are grazing in the meadow,” a woman whispered. The calm animals had no knowledge of humans—and thus no fear.

  After they walked a bit farther, someone noticed scratches in the ground. “Hey! These look like the tracks of wild hogs. I wonder if they were digging for truffles.”

  Although there was harsh weather outside their hidden valley, the surrounding mountains and forests blocked the burning summer heat and frigid winter air, so the climate inside the valley remained mild all year. The entire valley was green and filled with living things, except for one distant patch—a dead zone where nothing grew and no animals lived. The rest of the land was dark with rich soil in which wildflowers, apples, pears, and passion fruits grew abundantly. Purple grapes flourished on climbing vines that embraced the trees as they would a trellis. This valley would be a good place to hunt, farm, and live a peaceful life.

  “This land is breathtakingly beautiful. We can settle here,” said Jeremiah Abadon. He was thinking that it was also so isolated that it was unlikely his enemies could find him. They would start over in this hidden garden that no one else in the world knew about.

  Jeremiah Abadon appointed himself king, and all went well. He moved high into the mountains with his first wife, and they lived a lavish life overlooking the valley. He kept some slaves with him to build a mansion with gold flakes lining the walls and furniture. Abadon’s family depended on others to do all the work and take care of them, while their own lives were filled with holidays and play.

  The Indian princess, disgusted by their sloth and greed, left the Abadons on the mountain and went to live with the people in the valley. The other wives and children, along with the slaves who lived in the valley, worked hard to survive by farming and hunting. With daily tending, their vegetable gardens flourished. Jeremiah Abadon didn’t care much about the vegetables, but he took for himself the hops and barley that the villagers grew.

  In time, the original settlers all grew old and died peaceful deaths while they slept. Jeremiah Abadon’s riches were passed down through his family on the mountain for many generations. Between their generous head start and their total lack of ethics, the descendants of Jeremiah Abadon became insanely rich while everyone else lived down in the valley and worked the land for long hours.

  Fifteen generations had passed since Jeremiah Abadon and his family had discovered Achoo. Because of their isolation, the valley’s inhabitants had gradually forgotten about the outside world. The people built rough-hewn wooden huts, hunted, and grew their own food. They were poor, but their lives were calm and peaceful. They chose strong and smart men, who won competitions, to rule over them as kings. Once chosen, the king remained king for the rest of his life.

  Only the descendants of the original Abadon family, from the first wife, were born into wealth and privilege. But nobody else cared, because the Abadon family continued to live on top of the mountain away from the community. Everyone else, even the people’s chosen kings, were treated as equal from birth. The king’s job was to meet with the villagers and listen to their concerns, but then to make the important decisions such as which crops to plant, how many new houses to build, and who could marry. The king participated in competitions during holiday celebrations, along with the villagers.

  King Vasilios was a simple man. He was balding, with tufts of hair around the sides of his head and a roundish belly that grew rounder every year. He rubbed himself with purple flowers and smelled like lavender. He had won his kingship in several jousting matches as a young man, and although he was getting on in years—as they say about the aged, who wish they were not and keep stubbornly attempting to regain their youth—he insisted on joining the competitions each year.

  New Year’s Day fell in the summer. The villagers had long since lost touch with the outside world, and they did not keep track of dates, so the timing of the celebration differed each year according to the king’s mood. In some years they had two New Year’s Day celebrations, and in other years they had none. If the king became incapacitated or died, the villagers held a competition to let contestants demonstrate their skills. Then the villagers would meet and vote on which contestant they wanted as their next king.

  “This summer I am in high spirits. Let’s begin planning the holiday celebrations,” the king announced. “I’d like suggestions for contests.”

  “We could have a scavenger hunt,” said a teenaged boy sporting his first hint of a mustache.

  “A foot race,” added a tall man.

  “Or a chariot race,” several women, who had been whispering together, suggested simultaneously.

  “A cooking competition would be great,” said a chubby woman. Her idea generated loud applause.

  The most interesting idea was the toilet jump. They would line up toilets filled with water and jump their horses over them. The horse and rider who could jump the most toilets would win applause and praise from the community. The competitors who demonstrated the highest skills and won the most contests were highly esteemed in the community.

  On the day of the New Year’s celebration, people came from all over the valley.

  “Where do I put this cake?” asked a short woman with dark, curly hair. She was holding a tray with a huge honey cake.

  “Over there on that table,” answered a scruffy-looking farmer wearing blue jeans.

  “It’s amazing how big that table is. It must be one hundred feet long!” exclaimed the curly-haired woman with the honey cake.

  “It took months to build it specially for this celebration,” said Lincoln. He had long arms and legs, a craggy face, and oversized ears. He was the tallest person in Achoo and worked as the village carpenter. “I helped cut down the trees and build the table,” he added. Although they had only a few stone tools and no modern luxuries, the villagers were intelligent and skilled artisans who made do with what they had.

  “How many people can it seat?” asked Gynaika. She always had her nose in village events, and she was one of the brightest and most curious people you could ever meet. Gynaika had long, straight, braided hair and high cheekbones. Rumor had it that she was an ancestor of the Indian princess who had traveled with Jeremiah Abadon and his family.

  The people of Achoo, who were excellent cooks and bakers, soon covered the table with the most exquisite foods in a bouquet of colors and scents. They had deer, turkey, and a wild hog roasted over an open fire, along with truffles, delicate flowers, and a variety of vegetables from their gardens. With barley grown from the seeds that their ancestors had brought with them, they had baked heavy loaves of bread. Sweet ambrosia honey collected from the forest had been mixed with natural GMO-free flour and baked into a cake.

  “I brought hot sauce made from jalapeno peppers that I grew in my garden,” said Mikro, who loved hot sauce and carried it wherever she went. A petite, blonde woman, she was wiry and active. Mikro cared deeply about the women and children in the village, and she was always the first to volunteer when someone needed help. She loved writing and had amassed stacks of letters and diary entries written over many years.

  All through the meal, the villagers imbibed in two beverages: a strong wine made from alpine valley flowers and wild grapes and a beer brewed from their homegrown hops and barley. The dinner lasted all day as people ate, rested, visited with each other, then ate and drank again. This went on until they could eat and drink no more, and everyone fell into a drunken stupor.

  When the villagers finally awoke at mida
fternoon on the following day, the king announced, “It is time for the games to begin. I see all the villagers are here, as well as Orgizo Abadon and his family. It’s good to see you again,” the king said graciously to the Abadon family members. Orgizo was a rich Abadon descendant who lived in the mountains, far away from the village. He had three beautiful wives, a daughter, and two sons.

  “The first competition will be a foot race,” King Vasilios continued. “The runners will circle the village, following arrow-shaped signs pounded into the ground to direct them.” The race was about twenty miles long, and it was run naked. “There is a story here,” the king began. Some of the villagers groaned softly to themselves because they had heard the story many times.

  “A long time ago, participants in this race wore shorts,” said King Vasilios, “but one man, the fastest man in the valley, lost his shorts during the race. Rather than disqualify the winner, the people decided that the race, and several other contests as well, would be run in the nude. It became a tradition for both men and women, who competed together, and now we continue that tradition.”

  The men and women lined up, wearing nothing at all, and when the king counted to three and hit a loud gong, everyone began running. Arms, legs, and other body parts bounced as they ran for the rest of the day.

  The race was won by Dr. Grigoros, a tall, thin man with long legs, whose bald head glistened with sweat. What little hair he had was long and tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. “I wear my hair long and grow a beard and mustache because I can’t grow hair on top of my head, so I grow it where I can,” Dr. Grigoros always joked.

  A warm-hearted man, Dr. Grigoros had the title of doctor, even though he had no formal medical training. People went to him for help when they were sick or hurt. Dr. Grigoros understood the special healing powers of the local plants and knew how to make healing poultices. He also provided emotional support to patients and their families. Although he spoke so softly that others sometimes had trouble hearing him, he had a reassuring confidence about him.