The Shattered King
In the shadowed annals of old England, where the air still reeks of gunpowder and betrayal, there lurks a tale far older and blacker than the children’s rhyme would have you believe. They sing it softly now, with pictures of a jolly egg in bow ties, tumbling harmlessly to the ground. But Humpty Dumpty was no egg. He was pride itself—swollen, precarious, perched upon the crumbling wall of mortal ambition.
Long ago, in the blood-soaked years of civil war, Humpty was a mighty cannon, forged in iron and fury, hoisted atop the ancient walls of a besieged city. The Royalists called him their savior, this bloated beast of war, belching fire and death upon the enemies below. He sat high, unchallenged, lording over the battlefield like a false god, his barrel gleaming under the smoke-choked sun. The king’s men revered him; the king’s horses hauled him into place. He was invincible, or so they thought.
But pride sits on a narrow ledge. One thunderous volley from the Parliamentarians struck true. The wall beneath him cracked like bone under a headsman’s axe. Humpty toppled—down, down into the mud and rubble, his massive frame bursting apart in a cataclysm of twisted metal and splintered wood. Shards flew like screams in the night. The king’s horses whinnied in terror; the king’s men scrambled through the gore, desperately trying to reassemble their fallen titan.
They could not.
For Humpty was more than iron. He was the embodiment of hubris—the king’s unyielding grasp on power, the illusion that empires could endure forever. His great fall was the fall of grace itself: the shattering of a soul that reached too high, believing itself beyond breakage. Once fractured, no mortal force could mend him. The pieces lay scattered, weeping oil and rust into the earth, a warning whispered on the wind.
And in the quiet hours, when fog cloaks the old walls, they say you can still hear it—a low, ominous rumble from beneath the stones. Not thunder. Not wind. But Humpty, stirring in his grave of debris, waiting for the next proud fool to climb too high.
Sit on your wall if you dare. Balance there, swollen with certainty. But remember: the higher the perch, the greater the fall. And when you shatter…
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men will never put you together again.
The rhyme endures, sanitized for tender ears, but the truth festers below. Humpty Dumpty was never meant to be saved. He was meant to terrify—to remind us that some breaks are eternal, some falls irreversible. In the dark, the wall still stands, slick with ancient blood, inviting the next victim to take his seat.
Will you?
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 