It looks like we won't be emperors no more.

That's my first thought on awakening. I expect a mob. Yesterday there was a coup, although we weren't there, so we missed it. However, the results are in; we've been deposed. Doesn't that mean a mob should be storming the palace? I think the golden parachute for emperors is a lead anchor.

There is someone outside, but only a random passing in our neighborhood. It's a peculiar palace, perhaps unique for emperors. It's just one of the model homes in an upward mobile community. There are five floor plans, see, and the houses are rather crowded, and we have one of them, me and Niki J, the emperors. Until yesterday.

Should we have escaped? Don't ex-emperors run for the border? I'm so worried about us sleeping in our first day on unemployment.

Someone associates with us. It's an elderly couple, conspicuously ordinary. They just sort of glom onto us. We don't object, because, really, we don't have the authority. We don't want to provoke anyone by complaining. We are waiting to see what our role in the world shall be.

The couple, they are older (about our age, but we are much younger in our minds and me always in my dreams) and quite boring, to tell the truth. But they're better than the mob. We all start out somewhere. Niki J and I, we don't know where.

"Now," says the opposite lady, "We don't have much."

Oh, I see now. We are to be yoked with an older, dull couple of deadbeats. Maybe forever.

I wonder if this beats Elba.