Prince Jan sat by the river just outside his castle. It was quiet out, with only the sound of birds chirping, water rushing, and wolves howling in the distance. Jan smiled and hummed under his breath as he scribbled words in his notebook. He was writing a book, and a book was an odd thing to write for someone such as he, who only knew one other person. The rest of his friends were animals and fish. 

He wrote about the things he saw, mostly, and what inspired him. Nature was always the number one thing he wrote about. So, he wrote lots of poetry about the glory of nature. 

It was early afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky. Clouds were passing overhead, turning the world briefly gray, and then slowly uncovering the sun and letting the world be bright again. Jan tapped his nails on his chin as he thought of what to write next. 

Suddenly, his brows furrowed. I’ve never seen it rain… I've read about it in my books, but never seen it. 

He decided he would write about rain, since he had never seen it. For whatever reason, he loved to write about things he had never seen. He liked trying to picture them in his mind. For example, he had never seen a bear, or a seal, and tried to write poetry about them. 

He pursed his lips. My poetry about things I’ve never seen rarely turns out as good, though.

He nonetheless tried. 

Rain plummets from the sky

Pouring from on high

It mixes with tears

And amplifies my fears

Jan sighed. What do I know of tears? I’ve never cried before. 

Jan knew that one cried when they were frightened or sad, but he knew neither fear nor sadness. He decided to take a break from writing and stood up. Next to him was a rushing river. He pulled up his robes and stepped into it. Fish brushed past his legs. 

He grinned and attepted to seize one. He grabbed it, but it was so slippery and slimy that he immediately let go. 

Suddenly, a booming voice made him fall to his bottom in surprise. The clouds above parted, and a giant eye appeared in the sky. 

“JANNY, ARE YOU SAFE AND SOUND?” 

Jan puffed out a sigh of relief. “You scared the tar out of me, mother! And yes, I’m fine.”

The eye blinked, and there was a long pause. “Your fourteenth Birthday is just around the corner. I have something special to tell you that day.”

“Birthday? What’s that?” Jan asked confusedly. 

The eye receded into the sky, refusing to answer. Jan sighed. His mother was often cryptic like that. He stepped out of the water and lied down under the sunny sky. Everything was so bright and shiny, he couldn’t help but smile. He turned over, and fell asleep. 

When he dreamed, he dreamed of rain. Or rather, what he thought rain was like.

Droplets fell from the gray, cloudy sky. They were big—the size of his palms, and it crossed his mind that they may have been a little bit too big to resemble what rain actually looked like, but in a dream state, this thought only crossed his mind once. The rain was cool, but not cold, but enough of them falling on him made him freeze. 

The rain was pooling at his feet, and he realized that the water was not being sufficiently drained. In his readings, he had read about such a system. 

It requires there to be a grate for the water to drain underground. But there is none in this place. He looked around and saw he was surrounded by mountains, and that the raindrops would eventually fill the space between the mountains like a bowl. 

He began panicking, but then he woke up. 

He panted, and realized he was still safe and sound. On second thought, I think it would not be nice to experience rain. It sounds scary. 

He shivered, despite the fact that there was no need to shiver because it was so warm out. He looked up at the sky with a peaceful smile on his face. He was glad that, according to his mother, other humans had died off long ago. Now, he could have this green paradise all to himself. Although, he was sometimes curious about what life might have been like back when the other humans were alive. He had asked his mother about it, and she had said that the people who used to live were cruel, evil things who had wiped each other out, so he supposed he didn’t care to know them. His mother said that if they did exist, however, that he would reign over them as their god, because he would be so far above them. 

He whistled to himself, thinking it might be nice to rule over them, but that it might not be nice for them to be talking to him all the time. After all, whenever his mother spoke to him, he got irritated at her for disturbing the pristine silence of his beautiful wonderland. 

***

Another day passed, and Jan woke up to realize he had fallen asleep outside, and had never made it back to his castle. It was very early in the morning, the sun was just starting to rise. He sat up with a stretch and smacked his lips. He began marching toward the castle, deciding he would sleep in. It was true that his eggs didn’t taste as good to him later in the day, but it was also true that he couldn’t function on fewer than nine hours of sleep. 

As he walked, he remembered reading a book about a king who could never sleep more than one hour a night. However, somehow, this king was a better, more vicious, and competent leader than nearly every other king on the continent. 

Jan thought the king sounded fascinating, and wondered how difficult it would be to run a kingdom on one hour of sleep. Jan could barely get dressed on one hour of sleep. 

He looked down at his clothes. He was wearing a very comfortable hakama—a set of flared, oversized pants and a shirt with oversized sleeves. He scratched his cheek curiously. Why should I wear clothes when no one else is around?

It was an odd thought to have, and he decided not to explore it further, as it made him a bit uncomfortable to do so. He continued on his was to the castle, and enjoyed the sights of the rising sun just beginning to cast light on the top of a green hill in the distance, and on the top of the spire of his castle. He enjoyed the fresh scent of flowers on the breeze, and the cold air on his face. He inhaled a deep breath of air, and exhaled it, and it came out as a white puff on the breeze.

He listened to a nearby babbling brook, but then stopped in his tracks when he heard something odd. 

It was a booming voice at the edge of his hearing. He thought it might be what thunder sounded like, but then he realized that that was not possible, as his mother said that this region never had thunder. 

He blinked curiously. Perhaps the voice is a thing called ‘father’? I have a mother, and supposedly, I should have a father, too…

He called out, as loud as he could, “Father!”

But there was no response. He waited for a moment, and then shrugged, assuming he was just imagining things. He went on his way, and found he was panting by the time he finally arrived at the door to his castle. He swallowed, and then wiped sweat from his brow. He grabbed a handle on his door and opened it. 

Inside, he enjoyed the peace and quiet of the castle. Babbling brooks were nice, as was the sound of a gust of wind, but sometimes, complete silence was the thing he loved best. He pursed his lips as he looked around, his mother wanted him to clean up his castle a bit, but it was three stories high, and each floor had at least five rooms. 

The checkered, black and white tiles echoed beneath his feet as he stalked across the foyer and stopped at the bottom of the spiral staircase leading upstairs. He slowly climbed the stairs, sweating profusely. Maybe mom’s right… maybe I do need to lose some weight. 

He held on tightly to the railings on the stairs, stairs creaking eerily beneath is feet as he went. He paused when he was halfway up, and his face went white. 

He heard wind shrieking just outside, and it sounded quite ghostly. 

Fear gave him a second wind, and he ran the rest of the way upstairs at a breakneck speed, arriving at the second floor and running down the hallway. He found his bedroom door, opened it, and slammed the door.