Thursday, June 6, 2013

MUSIC PROMPT FICTION #2: Frédéric Chopin

MUSIC INSPIRED BY:


Frédéric Chopin - Prelude in E-Minor (op.28 no. 4)






"CHECKMATE"



It had only taken me but a moment to realize the state of affairs. The years of affection, the toil, pain and sacrifice-- all a miserable joke. My charade, the secret life of sin and assorted debauchery I'd hid for so long... nothing but a cough at a concert. She heard them all along. The moans... The rustling of sheets... All trifles to her. My perceived cunning had been nothing more than an illusion  brought on by her feigned ignorance. Yes, it was she... not I who truly was the deceiver. My queen. Oh, my precious queen... Oh how I pampered thee. If only as a bribe... but still. How could you do this to me? How could you do this to your country? Though I suppose I must come to terms now with the fact that it was never your country at all. The land you loved through your teeth-- the land you sold into slavery. Our land... our daughter's land... my land.

Lesser men than I oft divorce or dispose of their wives when the marriage ship starts to hit the rocks. Alas, I'd have been better off a lesser man, cursed by my own desire for integrity. How I envy the rabble! What ease, to live as  a rapscallion, undaunted by public scorn-- with a pride so besmirched a stain blends rather than stands out. I wish it was in my character to bail out and seek safe harbor like cowardly deserting pirates with not an ounce of loyalty. After all, I'd always believed that a captain ought go down with his ship and commanded such behavior from the admirals of my Navy. 

Was I a bad king or a bad husband? I ask myself such futile questions as these as I toss and turn in my cell. Trivial. Trivial in the fact that their answers matter not as my wife's powers of deception were so masterful that even the world's greatest tactician could not have seen through her plan. I'd selected my mate for her beauty with her high learning as an afterthought. Who would have thought that her thoughts were after my crown. My late father had advised me against allowing a woman a choice and the danger of providing them with books and education. At the time I found his warning to be senility induced ramblings, the nonsense spouted at the deathbed by a dying sovereign in a last ditch effort to preserve the ways of his era. I see now that they were sage. Lethally true. 

She never loved me. 

NEVER.

Me. A king. A man with limitless power and prestige. 


Such an unforgivable betrayal! Sure, it is true I never felt a thing for her, but that is not to be expected of me. Her grace is my embrace. The only sight upon which she sets her horizon is my glorious hand. The hand bearing the ring she shares. The ring she kissed loyally in front of my entire court. Or as loyal as she allowed it to seem... as it is now known that she had been a spy from the kingdom of Gamalur-- a land decimated and destroyed by my father. What loyalty is that, anyway?  With her entire country dead, why would she still operate for its favor. Those fake tears... I am the one who deserves to cry. My bloodline now ends with me. The storied history of my family's monarchy, a brilliant book hundreds of years in the making., sees it's final chapter. Yes, my people called my grandfather a tyrant unfit to inherit his father's crown. True, my father and I continued down his path of firm rule with an emphasis on building our wealth. But they did not see the end goal! Their rebellion snuffed my candle before I could reach the top of the tower where they could finally see the great heights all the harsh steps we were taking lead. They dared criticized a plan before its results were in!? TRULY. She betrayed the entire country, no the ultimate fate of the world, by betraying me.


That is what you did not see. No one saw it. That was my plan. I had to bleed the people dry to amass funds in my war chest. Our military was on its way to becoming an unstoppable army. In a mere decade or two, we would have had the power to obliterate and enslave all the other kingdoms. If my people trusted in my power rather than her so-called 'wit'  they would have lived to see the day when we made foreigners slaves instead of them. They would have been able to live the life of ease and luxury they so foolishly chastised my family for living. Oh, such is my curse... to be born with great misfortune. My ill luck fated me to be in charge of such an ignorant and selfish lot. They never deserved my family. We should have completely stripped away all their freedom years ago. But no, my kindness got the best of me again. I foolishly allowed them to work for me and die for me in the way they saw fit... in their own homes with their own families.  They will see that life won't be so simple with me gone.


I do not care that I am to be beheaded tomorrow, as I would have committed suicide out of spite anyway. I've done the Lord's work, I shall be seeing him shortly. They call me an arrogant narcissist... but they can have their dumb opinions-- I never cared for them. I do not fear death. I look forward to seeing God. It will be nice to speak with an equal for once.

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