The year: 1997

38455, Moking Street,
Oadley,
Albion

Rain pelted down on Wyllt residence. The television blared in the background:

A tragic end to Albion's hope. The days ahead will undoubtedly be difficult to bear and laden with sadness. The nation mourns for The Queen and extends our condolences to the royal family.

The Queen- after the tragic death of King Harold barely three months ago- has died of excessive blood loss while delivering a stillborn: a fair-haired girl, if rumors are to be believed.

We look to Prince Gregory, The Queen's second cousin, to lead the nation in these dark times.

We will return with more updates on The Queen's untimely demise shortly.

A cheerful detergent advertisement followed, making the three-year-old Marty stop wailing and glance at the television.

His father, Foster Wyllt, had returned home much later than usual that day and announced that he had sold off part of his inheritance. A loud argument followed when Marci, his wife of five years, asked him to explain himself.

Marty's parents had been having a lot of arguments lately. Not one day went by without an incident that left Marci in tears. Her eyes had a perpetual puffy look that she often covered with cheap foundation and dark glasses when she took Marty for his evening stroll. The neighbors suspected abuse, but those who truly knew Foster Wyllt knew he was incapable of violence.

One evening, three months ago, Foster, who worked as an assistant to the royal physician, had returned home with trembling hands. He had refused to answer any of his wife's questions and shut himself up in their room for hours before leaving it in the middle of the night. He had come back home intoxicated. After that, things had gotten worse for the family of three, with Foster constantly lost in his thoughts and going to work like a plane on autopilot.

"Foster, please. We can make it through this. Just listen. We still have a roof over our heads. Marty needs you. I need you." Marci begged, ignoring the resolve in her husband's inky eyes.

Foster shook his head, "I have seen things, Marci. Terrible things. I can never go back. I am sorry, sweetheart. If I stay, I will only pull you down with me." He pulled his wife in for a quick embrace; letting her go, he opened the bedroom door.

Foster's inky depths lingered on his son. By now, Marty's tears had dried. Noticing his father's eyes on him, the toddler smiled. He rose to his feet and opened his arms, but before the talons of fatherly affection could sink into Foster's heart, tethering him to his beloved son, he turned heel and left.

Marci yelled, "Foster! Foster, come back. Please!" She ran out in the rain that beat down on her, leaving her soaked to the bone within seconds.

"Mum." The barely audible call was followed by a loud cry, but Marci didn't hear it. Everything was falling apart: her marriage, her family, and her life.

"Foster. You can't leave me!" The woman ran anywhere her bare feet carried her, crazed and inconsolable, while the child lay forgotten.

Left alone, Marty started crying once again. To be fair to the toddler, it was to be expected. His father had walked off after ignoring him, and his mother had followed his father out right after that.

Marty had had enough, and so had the coffee table- with a not-so-aesthetically placed hole in its middle- as it sat next to the television, watching the events unfold.

Over the centuries, the residents of the table, who went by the names: Merlin and Morgana, had never once stopped throwing shade at each other every chance they got. A millennium of sharing the same tiny space- with no one else who could hear or communicate with them- was probably the reason. Then again, the two magicians were hardly on good terms when they had gotten themselves trapped in the tree that the two by two piece of furniture was carved out of a long time ago.

'He is too loud for his own good, isn't he?' Merlin cribbed.

'He is a child, Merlin,' Morgana replied, leaving a tired breath.

'Yes, I can see that very well, Morgana.' Merlin snapped before immediately biting his tongue and adding in an apologetic tone, 'All I am saying is that he must be mindful of his neighbors.'

'Do you think they would care even if they, by some miracle, could hear us? Do you think anyone here cares? Bloody humans!' Morgana's tone darkened, matching the low-hanging clouds outside.

'Watch your tongue, Morgana.'

'Why? It's not like the boy can hear us. No one has heard us for eleven hundred years. Thanks to you!' The rumble outside complimented Morgana's mood, making her sound scarier than usual.

'Morgana, it's not like it was entirely my fault.' Merlin threw in his two cents cautiously.

A wrong move, obviously.

Outside Wyllt residence, lightning struck a pine tree and fell to the ground, missing the unremarkably bland-looking place by inches. 'Really? Are you insinuating-'

Marty had stopped crying a few seconds ago, but only now did one of the residents notice the absence of wailing. 'Wait. Do you hear that?' Merlin asked, referring to the silence that hung heavy in the air.

The child's ebony eyes came to rest on the coffee table placed next to the television.

'What?' Morgana paused; the rain turned to a mere drizzle.

'He stopped crying.'

'Do you think he can hear us?' Something akin to excitement lined Morgana's query.

Marty blinked; reaching for the furniture, he pulled on one of its legs.

'Highly unlikely.' The man replied, hoping against hope that he was wrong and Morgana was right.

The boy ran his tiny, stubby fingers over the table's smooth ridges and not-so-delicate curves. He wiped the snot that ran down his straight, sharp nose, closing in on his pink, plump lips. Then, leaning in, he placed his ear on its counter and whispered, "Hi."

The realization of what had happened dawned on Merlin. 'Oh. Oh.'

A surprised gasp left Morgana. It had been a while since anything had surprised her, 'What the hell did you do now, Merlin?'

"Hell. Hell. Hell." Marty repeated in quick succession. Then, slapping his hands together in what could pass off for clapping, he exclaimed. "Table talks!"

Merlin, who usually had answers to most baffling questions, the wisest man in his beloved friend Arthur's Kingdom, and the greatest sorcerer to ever walk on Earth, had no idea what had brought about this unexpected development. He thought and thought and thought some more, but when nothing came to him, he truthfully replied, 'Nothing, Morgana. I did absolutely nothing.'