Memoirs of an Emperor [Work In Progress]

An "Emperor" rises and falls as he realises that he is others' subject.

THE MEMOIRS OF AN EMPEROR

 

Prologue: Waking up

 

  

 

  It’s the last working Friday in the December of 2013 and I’m being sent to the hell I loathe by my mother: school. Today seems different but familiar. For once, it stopped snowing after three days and my mom seems to be more down than usual. I have no idea what to say to her as she always dismisses me pretty quickly. I sit casually to finish my bowl of cereal, dressed up in my scruffy white uniform and red tie hanging loosely around my neck, like a noose ready to strangle the life out of an unfortunate soul. The air seems heavy and cold, and the Turkish soap opera that can be heard on the TV is starting to buzz me off, but I know this is no time for picking on it. What seems out of place is that mom isn’t paying attention to it at all. She is standing there, giving me this lifeless and empty stare, looking like a machine that could break down every minute from too much pressure. Making a daring act, I break the silence.

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Good.’ She says while coughing like something is pressing her

  ‘How was yesterday?’

  ‘Good, you know already.’

  At this point I’m thinking to give up.

  ‘I spoke with your brother yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, you did? He’s supposed to leave in three days with dad right? He should be back for Christmas after all, like every ye-’

  I am then being cut off by words that send an echo through my ears

  ‘Your father is dead.’

  I sit there motionless looking at her. I think for a while and think of what to say: Should I put on an act and pretend I’m hurt or should I be sincere about it? I can just pretend to cry and be sad but without thinking I say ‘Well, it happens’ while finishing up my milk.

  She looks at me with eyes glaring of anger and disappointment. In a flash she grabs me by my shirt and tries to strangle me.

  ‘WHAT’S GOTTEN INTO YOU?’ she says while giving me a slap that makes my teeth jiggle.

  With a move I break free and tell her ‘It was bound to happen. That line of work is dangerous’.

  She then lets go and starts crying hysterically. I put on my coat and boots and prepare to leave. She interrupts me by saying ‘No son of mine is this cold’ to which I emotionlessly respond ‘Okay’.

  I leave for school, battling the unforgiving wind and cold.

 

 

Chapter I: Life in a mask

 

  I give no thought to what mother said while walking towards the bus station. I’m more focused on making sure my limbs don’t freeze while I’m moving along the other crowds of students, hurrying to catch their bus.  To put my mind at ease and to make it work, preventing it from becoming a Popsicle, I start thinking.  Mom had just told me my father died, and I responded by simply saying ‘Okay’. My father, who actually was one of the two sacred beings who gave life to me, is now a lifeless body, prepared to be put into the ground.

  The concept of death doesn’t scare me. Life is nothing but the intermediary phase between birth and the end. From dust we rise and in dust we fall. Life, as one of my very few friends states, ‘Has no purpose but for us to not be bored before we die’. Sadly, all this philosophy has to be paused momentarily because my brain doesn’t function properly when it’s on the verge of freezing. The bus not coming isn’t helping either, my legs were starting to wobble and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably. I was wondering how I would manage doing this for two and a half more years.

  Finally the bus comes. It is like a reunion with an old friend. Old as in like the typical bickering 70-year old man living next-door to you. One wrong move and it will bog down or preferably break. This ‘trek’ in itself can’t be compared to anything other than traveling in a carriage with only one horse which itself has only three legs: you’re always afraid that you’ll stop or have an accident.

  The fact that the vehicle was overly crowded wasn’t helping either. Everyone was pushing against everyone, with someone always asking ‘getting off?’ at every station. I have to say that this isn’t totally unpleasant though. One of my weirdest habits is to look at other persons’ expressions and imagine what they have to do/ what they just did. That old lady frowning may be appalled at the teenagers talking about the latest legal drug that’s in trend right now, or the best brand of cigarettes that just faintly gives the smell of nicotine. That man sitting expressionless, just looking out the window may be thinking how to break the news to their boss that he found a better job.

  I get lost in analyzing and find myself at the station where I finally have to get off the bus. The warmth from the bus made my ‘gears’ spin in my head which make me come back to the theme I was philosophizing about �" death. Maybe because of my grim view on life I am left untouched by this event. While my mom is crying her heart out about my dead dad, I’m not giving him any importance. I’m thinking whether or not to let this affect me throughout the day.

  Life is nothing but, how Buddhism teaches, a long string of painful events: we go and traverse each one, thinking the next would actually give us some sort of satisfaction. But the Nirvana isn’t there. When we die, we die. There is no reincarnation or anything that miraculously makes us revive. While some may see this as a reason to enjoy life to its fullest, I can’t help but comment on the futility of everything. I don’t merely wait for the day when I will die, but I welcome it with cold pleasure.

  By the time I thought of all of this, I was nearing school, moving at a moderate pace. It was still dark outside, and the students were slowly entering the building. The sun starts showing up a bit and the sky turned into a faint orange color. The school grounds are ‘infested’ by crows, making sounds in unison, appearing like moving shadows on the greyish snow. I enter the century-old building and the sole guardian greets me with a lazy ‘Good morning’ to which I reply using the same words. I’m taking off my hoodie and slowly opening the classroom’s giant wooden door, above which the number ‘1’ is painted.

  Not surprisingly, the class is empty. The lights have been most likely turned off by the cleaning lady yesterday evening when everyone went home. I open them up and the two working neons (half of how many there actually are) open up with short bursts of light that envelop the whole room.  The warmth inside it (it’s actually the best class in the whole school regarding this aspect) makes my glasses foggy making it hard to make my way towards my desk, in the front row.

  My classmates made sure that Christmas comes this year here, and in full force: garlands decorate the walls and blackboards and big images of Santa, looking like cardboard cut-outs, are plastered around. The Christmas tree, which we collectively put money forward in order to buy it, sits in front of my desk, itself being on one, to remind myself along with the other decorations that it’s that time of the year. If it weren’t for those, I could say it’s just a normal day.

  But then I think: is a day when I lost one of my parents normal?  I ponder again over the situation and realize that it isn’t, but then again, people die every day. I ultimately decide that I shouldn’t give this too much thought and just lazily wait with my headphones on, listening to music for my classmates to come. First hour’s English apparently after which come five more, but due to being the last day before Christmas, we should get away quite easily  from them.  I hum along with the song, sitting sideways on my bench while thinking of certain things.

  It’s not long until somebody else comes. I have to stop humming and start to turn down my volume and I respond with a lazy ‘Morning’. Besides greetings, I don’t talk with anyone. I have no reasons to do so, since everything I say is either something that is contradicting them or a thing which only I find interesting. To them, I’m nothing more than ‘that’ kind of person, who is anti-social and who disagrees to whatever they say. To me, they are nothing more but clones of each other with different masks on.

  I’m not trying to stand out but I find myself in antithesis with most of them. It’s in the human nature to be envious and judgmental and I can’t condemn them for that, but what I can them for is trying to hide off this nature with ‘masks’. Everyone seems to pretend to like each other. I honestly can’t do that. This is partly why I am considered to ‘not be in this class’. I am intolerant, but at least I am sincere about what I think about them. I never participate in false friendships, and I learned that the hard way. It’s better to just say what you think of a person, than slowly realizing you actually hate them more than you should.

Author's Note

Ignore my grammar mistakes please as English is not my primary language. This is just WORK IN PROGRESS and I doubt I want to finish this because I came to terms with certain things and changed my judgment (the protagonist was to be an accentuation of my negative side)

Reviews

[Doodle29]

Wow, un roman care sa scrie asa de bine in engleza! Chiar mi-a placut cum i-ai descris sentimentele si viziunea lui asupa lumii. Pare un personaj complex si as vrea sa-l vad interactionand mai mult cu altii. Tot ce sper, este sa o continui, rar gasesti asa o poveste care te face sa te gandesti si la altii.

[RavenWells]

You wrote this very well! You can't tell at all that english isn't your first language. The only thing that I noticed that could be fixed, is that right now it feels like the piece isn't going anywhere. Besides that I really liked this piece. :)

[Adrian O.]

Thank you very much for this helpful review!