In 1855, the owner of the New Orleans Crescent newspaper walked into Nicaragua and declared himself king. By the time a year had passed he had reinstated slavery, declared English the official language of the nation, and restructured its economy to encourage further colonization by the United States. Unfortunately for the new ruler, he made an enemy of the trainmaster Cornelius Vanderbilt, who hired two farmers to assassinate him, forcing him to flee back to the United States on a gunboat, abandoning his throne. Five years later, he would attempt to reclaim it, only to be captured in the region of the Mosquito Coast, delivered to Honduran authorities, stood up against a wall, and shot.
King slayer. Little prayer. Faith in that small word lead—the innocence of the dancer. Financer. No answer. What beyond weather should a new country follow? It was the beginning of the wet season; the only way to become a man was to kill one. Yellow sun. Empty lung. The bullet can be a kind of medicine that moves emptiness from the soul, exposing it in the eye. Brief sigh. Blackened lie. There is only one way to trust a king —when he is dead, his once-regal clothes, a symbol, now irreparably frayed. Some time after his death, bananas adorning the skulls of colonizers were freely displayed.