Journal Entry 15

3. Juli 2020

I am still trying to grasp this week’s events, from the apparent “suicide” of the man who attempted to assassinate the king, to the parliamentary bills presented by the prime minister’s party, which sparked widespread demonstrations throughout Dorstenland. Add the COVID-19 pandemic to the mix; I feel I am living in an alternative reality.

After Prime Minister Northcott’s morning press conference, the prime minister and I once again got into a private and fiery exchange regarding King Jonas’s public opinions. Northcott indirectly threatened to challenge the legitimacy of King Jonas and the entire House of Dietrich should Jonas continue to undermine Northcott’s agenda. I immediately rebuked the prime minister’s allegations. I responded to Northcott very firmly that his accusations were baseless, without warrant, and extremely dangerous. He did not provide any evidence to back up his assertions.

The parliamentary bills presented by Northcott’s party included limiting Dorstenland’s involvement in the European Union, and the removal of term limits for all elected parliament members, including the prime minister’s position. Soon after King Friedrich’s coronation in 1910, term limits were placed into law. During that era, the anti-monarchist movement reached the shores of Dorstenland, forcing Friedrich to limit the role of the House of Dietrich.

King Friedrich saw the writing on the wall and immediately went into negotiations with the anti-monarchists elected to parliament. Fearing the rise of socialism, Friedrich insisted on term limits for all elected parliamentary members, in exchange for the king giving up specific royal duties. According to the official memoir of King Horace, the king said that his father wanted term limits to prevent left-wing socialists from staying in power, which would be a direct threat to the legitimacy of the House of Dietrich. More than a century later, we now have a nationalistic, right-wing prime minister wanting to remove term limits in an apparent threat to undermine King Jonas and the House of Dietrich.

After I had enough of Prime Minister Northcott’s baseless allegations against Jonas, I politely excused myself and walked away from the prime minister. Moments later, I heard Northcott yell, “Köhler!” When I turned around, the prime minister was standing right behind me. He looked straight into my eyes and said, “You are becoming quite the thorn in my side, aren’t you? Perhaps I should do something about that.” Then the prime minister leaned closer and whispered into my ear, “And that’s precisely what I am going do.”

Later that afternoon in Jonas’s office, the king poured me a couple of shots of Bourbon to calm my nerves. I had not realized I was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack after telling Jonas about my interaction with Northcott. The king assured me that he would immediately contact the head of his security detail, Damien Fernsby, to increase security for me, my wife, and my children. Jonas stated that in the morning, he would invoke an emergency session of parliament slated for tomorrow evening to advise Dorstenland’s parliament of the prime minister’s threats.