Excerpt: Zanny, Lord of the Universe!

At precisely six o’clock in the morning, the alarm clock began to play, as it would every day. Zander was already awake, and had been for a handful of minutes, as he was every morning. Truthfully he didn’t need the alarm clock to wake him. He’d been getting up at the same time every morning for so long his body just woke itself, on schedule, without fail.
He kept the alarm clock though, because it played music, and Zander loves music. Every day it played a different song. A long time ago he had asked his servants to program the clock with a new song each evening, so that he could enjoy it the next morning. Listening to the music of his wake up call was the highlight of his day. It was really the only thing that changed in his day to day life. Ever.
Zander listened intently to the new tune, wishing, like he did every morning, that he could memorize it in one go. That’s all he had time for, really. His life was much too busy to spend time listening to music play over and over again. As soon as the song ended, it was time for the daily events to begin.
He sighed a little as the final notes faded into the silence of his bedroom. Not two seconds later the doors to the room flung open, and servants began to file in. Zander sat up and pushed his covers aside. The moment he was on his feet, servants began tugging the bedding away from the mattress and recovering it in fresh linens. Zander was led away to the bathroom, and his morning routine began.
Bathing passed by uneventfully as usual. As did dressing (in his usual garments of brown and gray), and breakfast (a well rounded meal of all the important food groups blended into one grayish smoothie that he sipped quietly), and a briefing of the day’s events (which were the same as yesterday, of course). Zander went through it all like clock work. Nodding or waving or smiling or agreeing, wherever or whenever he needed to, without even having to listen or pay attention much to what was going on around him.
Next he was dressed up a little nicer than before (a little more brown and a little less gray), and led down to the one window in his entire palace. It was large, about five times as tall as him, and four times as wide. From this window, each day he would survey his kingdom. Or at least as much of it as he could see from where he stood. This included the Royal City which wrapped all around the palace, and a glimpse of the country surrounding that, and the clear blue sky above that, and – though he couldn’t see this at the moment, since it was day time – the stars and planets and galaxies beyond his home.
All of it belonged to Zander, for he was the Lord of the Universe.
As he approached the window, cheers arose from the grounds outside and far below the palace window he now gazed through. Like always, Zander waved at his people, and smiled. Of course they couldn’t see his facial expressions. At this distance, they probably couldn’t much see his approving wave. But Zander felt it was important to do these things anyway. And the advisors always said it was good to show he cared for his subjects, even if they couldn’t see it. Zander wanted to be a good Ruler of Everything, so he did what they said.
He stood at the window to survey everything for the usual amount of time – about ten minutes – and then followed his advisors and servants back to the dressing rooms to change back into some more casual clothes.
After that it was time for studies. He was told it was important for a good ruler to be knowledgeable in many subjects. So he studied each day for a few hours.
Today’s subject was history, a fairly boring subject for him. Zander had discovered long ago that very nothing interesting had ever happened. Most history lessons were about brief wars and conflicts between planets that were quickly solved by whoever was Lord of the Universe at the time, or about past discoveries in science, or new lands found and claimed for the Lord of the Universe’s constantly growing kingdom. Basically, all the lessons were the same, but with different details, like names and places and dates and such.
Zander didn’t have to do much work in history. He’d just memorize the details of that day’s lesson well enough to pass the exam at the end of the study period, and then forget it all. The method made him feel slightly ashamed of himself, after all there must be some important reason for learning the boring stories and lessons, but he just couldn’t stand to pay much attention to his history studies.
Finally it came time for the newest part of his daily routines. Shortly after his last birthday, he’d been informed by his advisors that he had reached the age to be wed. And shortly after that his advisors introduced him to Kiima, the woman he was betrothed to. An hour long, daily visit with her was added to his daily schedule. A few weeks later the visits were extended to two hours, and a few weeks after that it was announced that they would also have lunch together every other day following their visits.
At first Zander had been excited for this change, and enjoyed their visits very much. He thought his excitement and entertainment came from getting to know the young woman and developing a bond with her. But he soon realized that she really wasn’t very exciting, or entertaining, or enjoyable after all. His fondness for those hour long visits with Kiima came only from the fact that it was something new in his life, and as soon as the novelty of it all wore off, he felt pretty much the same about his time with her as he did about any other part of the daily routine.
Zander followed his servants out of the library where he did his studies and through the corridors of his large palace. As they approached the room where he and Kiima had their visits, he could see through the open double doors that she was already there waiting, like always.
Kiima looked up from the book she’d been reading as soon as she heard footsteps coming down the hallway outside. She stood and looked out the large doorway. Zander and his little entourage of servants were headed her way. Her eyes met those of her “betrothed” and she grimaced. He smiled back politely, for of course he hadn’t seen her annoyed frown, but a glorious and loving smile instead.