Breathe
By Romanov Heiress
The power of the crown is like good wine for the alcoholic: after tasting a glass, it is impossible to stop. I want to drink the whole barrel of power, I do not want to let go of the production of the whole year, of the whole six-year term. I want it for myself, for my house, my history and to leave my name in History.
Power for me is like a perpetual orgasm; like living with water in my mouth thinking about the next bite and immediately devouring that craving. The trickle of drool sometimes comes out, I know, and I try to restrain myself, but I just can't. I want more. I want more. I always want more.
Right now, here and now, sitting in the great blue velvet armchair that was arranged in my palace to contemplate the sunset, I laugh at the naivety that two of my subjects have shown in thinking that I will transfer to them a modicum of the kingdom's power. I watch them serve me, I watch them please me. They jump, they smile, they do dances, they are jesters, they are informers, they are circus for the people. I try to keep quiet and not let my inner laughter show when they inform me of their most recent public acts, of their meetings with important people, of their propaganda printed on cheap paper that they try to pass from hand to hand.
I laugh at all that. So it amuses me.
I take a sip of my tea from the gold cup that my favorite servant brings me and watch him as he retires: so faithful, so devoted, so himself. This, serving the king, is as far as he has come.
But me... me? I conquered the mountains, I conquered the people, I earned this privilege of having the power in my hands that, if one day I want, I use it like plasticine that I mold to my taste and whim. I pretend to sculpt a little ball and pass it on, but I do not. My power is mine alone, this higher calling to serve all these people who have lived centuries in poverty and who today are almost the same, but at least they believe they will get out of it because every month I give them a loaf of bread.
These two subjects have sent me gifts and letters, they tell me how loyal they will be to me and my family when I give them my place. They show me maps, war strategies, future alliances that they believe will make them better rulers. They try to seduce me into choosing one of them. What they do not know is that it will be neither, it will be me, me and always me.
The most exultant surprises in the history of the world come from unpredictable moves on the blackboard. Make believe one thing to do another, whatever suits one's power.
Neither the two contenders for the power of this palace, nor this people I claim to serve, imagine that the only thing I seek is some entertainment in watching them compete, when what I am waiting for is to have the council of ministers fully on my side months before my supposed departure so that they will modify the rules in my favor and allow me to perpetuate myself until this flesh and these bones perish probably in this same velvet armchair that looks to the horizon behind the large window.
Are you really so naive to think that I'm going to leave just like that? No. Because it took me a lifetime to get here, that lifetime will stay here until I no longer exist.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
More than 150 opinions from 100 columnists await you for less than one book per month.
Comments ()