Royal Pain in the Palace

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan must be stopped, Ethrem says, right before he pushes the button that vaporizes my existence to send me off to do his bidding.

Alarm bells should have been ringing in my mind when my older brother–Machiavellian minded as always–started spending far too much time on RoyalAncestry.com. Why did I go along with Ethrem’s plan to be sent back to the past? Maybe I just wanted to escape. Or maybe it was a self-preservation instinct after a lifetime of dodging his cutting words and bull-headed aggression. Imperious would be a perfect word to describe his character.

Enough about me. To whom might be reading this in the future, a question: have you ever been anesthetized? If yes, then you know the feeling. One second you are counting down “10…9…8…” and the next instant, someone is saying, “Good morning!” and it's five hours later. Time travel is like that.

I blink my eyes and 73 years are rewound. We researched dates and details. Probabilities in the multiverse are altered, and through a chain of heavily engineered twists of fate, I become (became?) the sister Prince Harry never knew he always wanted.

Sister. This is going to take some time to get used to.

He’s pacing the ridiculously over decorated room. He looks 24 and boyish, despite being a decade older. His wedding tuxedo is laid out on the bed.

“Having second thoughts?” I ask, wasting no time to make my first move.

“As if you could understand,” he mumbles while continuing to stare at the carpet.

My character Princess Jane has a track record of wanton partying, debauchery, and a steady trend of wild unpredictability. I think the engineering team spent too much time watching that ridiculous TV show from the 2020s, in which every character drank a bottle of whiskey a day without dying.

“I am thinking of your future, Harry, I just want you to be happy.”

Harry looks at me with curiosity. “You are acting different today. Almost, concerned.”

I put the whiskey glass down, smooth out my dress, feeling all the new parts of my body in the process, and try to look deeply concerned.

“I need a slash,” Harry says, and walks out.

While he is in the toilet, I pull out the laser cutter I brought with me and carry out the act of sabotage Ethrem had cleverly devised.

Just as I am finishing, Harry walks back in. He’s still restless.

I blurt out, “What is it like having all the resources of Great Britain at your disposal?”

“All that stuff?” he says, looking outside and pointing a finger at Windsor palace's grounds. “Who needs all that? All I want to do is shut the door of my room and play computer games. Well, and…”

I look toward him and attempt to pout like a princess.

“But I'm happy to have you as my sister,” he says, putting his arms around me and hugging me tight. It feels odd, I've never been hugged by a man.

But we are relatives. I’m his great-great nephew. If the monarchy doesn't fall apart in 2053, my brother Ethrem would become King of England. Not Scotland or Wales though. But that’s too much information for this timeline.

“Harry, did you consider if getting married to an American might mean the monarchy falls apart? And your future ancestors might be reduced to serving ziddle berry foam lattes at Pret Manger.”

“Ziddle what?”

“Just imagining…”

“Why would that matter when I have my own lifetime here of wearing ridiculous hats, going to dull charity events, and giving stiff television interviews?”

I nod sympathetically. “I think you might still be doing many of those if you get married to Meghan.”

“How would you know?”

“Just a hunch.”

“You for one should know how tedious the endless pageantry is.”

I don’t. As we only need to work one day a week in the future, I spend all my other time playing The Day After Tomorrow 2089.

He finishes putting on his tux, and we walk downstairs and go outside for a breather. He points at a car parked there. “An eclectic Jag for the wedding. Eco-friendly. Let your brother take you for a drive.”

I get in. “You think this is eco-friendly,” I chortle. A 2,000 hunk of metal, that is not eco or friendly.

As he swings around the corners of Windsor palace's ground, and I hold on not to topple over, I get back to my pitch.

“It’s not as if you are escaping all the pomp and circumstance in America. They have their own traditions. Apple pie, American flags, fighter jets flying over baseball games, listening to We Are The Champions at every sporting event.”

“We are the Champions is a British song:”

“It is?” They still play it in 2091.

Harry circles back and we arrive in time for the party. As we shuffle into the crowd, in the background, I hear Elton John begin to sing the opening verses to “Your Song”

I don’t know this melody. Finding the repetitive piano chords monotonous, I begin to think about how I’m missing playing the next chapter of The Day After Tomorrow 2089, that’s being released tomorrow.

A hostess pushes in and asks, “Grilled English Asparagus?”

Harry accepts a small plate.

“Don’t you know?”, I say, “Asparagus has been connected to a 200% chance of increased…let me not bore you with details.”

“200% of what?”

Oops. “You only live once,” I say and pop a spear into my mouth.

The song “I’m in love” begins to play. It’s almost time.

Ethrem said Harry is emotionally unstable, narcissistic. Let's see if this works.

“Forgiveness, Harry. You must learn how to forgive.”

“Where did that come from? Never,” he says, then walks over to Meghan and elegantly takes her hand. They step out to the center of the dance floor and the crowd parts to give them the center of everyone’s attention.

They begin to move together to the music. I’ve never seen people dance in person before, it’s oddly memorizing. At the emotional peak of the song, Harry spins Meghan behind his back. He flashes a smile at the crowd, stretches out a leg to drop her into his arms on her return. When she arrives, he reaches down catches Meghan, and as if part of a performance, his pants rip wide open.

A dozen journalists click photos of his pink flesh sticking out through the gaping hole in his tuxedo trousers.

Harry’s face turns deep red. The tiny incisions in his trousers worked exactly as planned.

He freezes for 10 seconds, then 20 seconds. Then a curious thing happens. He smiles.

“Everyone, it appears Murphy’s Law has gotten all the kinks out at this rehearsal.” He stands up straight and proud, as if his clothes are still in perfect condition. ”I now have a great feeling about tomorrow.”

In the next instant, I’m back in my room looking at the opening page of The Day After Tomorrow 2089. On my VR screen, it says Introducing Chapter 7.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Victor, can I come in?” Ethrem is saying. He’s never asked before.

“Sure.”

“Before I leave for work today at the Jumbo Juice,” he says, “I’d just like to say how proud I am to have you as a younger brother.”

My plan worked. One forgiveness snowballed into another and yet another, all the way until it reached Ethrem and his childhood full of trauma, and it changed everything.