The King of Ashes: A Fable, by Charles Watts

Prose, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

In a once-vibrant capital where bells measured the soul of a nation, a man named Don rises with irresistible charm and a vision of greatness that promises clarity in uncertain times. But what begins as confidence curdles into domination as he discovers a darker philosophy: the seven deadly sins are not weaknesses, but steps to power. As pride swells into worship and truth dissolves beneath his will, the city transforms—its history rewritten, its people reshaped, and its future quietly mortgaged to a single man’s ambition. Through the eyes of a printer, a fisherman, a teacher, and those who live in the shadows of power, the cost of Don’s ascent becomes impossible to ignore.

The King of Ashes: A Fable is a haunting allegory of power, corruption, and collapse, tracing the slow unraveling of a society that trades truth for comfort and accountability for spectacle. As nature itself rises to reclaim what has been exploited, the story moves beyond ruin into something unexpected: renewal. In the ashes of a fallen empire, a new world struggles to grow, one rooted not in dominance, but in memory, humility, and shared survival. Both cautionary tale and quiet hymn of hope, this fable asks a timeless question: what remains when a man succeeds in owning everything?

Early in his career, Watts had an underground play (Visigoths) produced in Los Angeles, which led to scriptwriting contracts for several TV series, including Kojak and Here Come the Brides. He fled Hollywood, got an MFA in poetry, and went to Iran to teach literature at several Universities. For five years, he edited Seizure, a magazine of poetry and fiction. He has also been a cab driver, social worker, refugee worker in camps in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Costa Rica, and owner of a tour company. His poems and stories have been anthologized in Road Poets, Adirondack Epiphanies, Schroon River Anthology, Northern Oracle, Touring the Ruins, and Karma in the High Peaks, which received the People’s Choice Award for best book of 2010 from the Adirondack Center for Writing. His poems won the Patricia and Emmett Robinson Prize (2015 - Poetry Society of South Carolina) and first place at the North Country Writers Festival twice. His books include The Current Above (poems), Waking Up in a Beautiful Room (poems), Raptures (short stories), Cure Cottage (1-act plays), and The Road to Swat (a chapbook of travel tales). He splits his time between Charleston, SC and Lake Placid, NY.