Act
Zero
Scene
Five
Another
letter
‘Hello
Octavia,
My
name is Cleopatra Thilo of Egypt. You may have heard of me as the Queen. The
namesake or rank was given to me because I was the surviving daughter of a
crime lord in Egypt. Funny how that stuck with me, but my close friends called
me Cleop.
If
you take away the rank and the works of Egypt, I am just a woman like you. We
were all entrusted to this realm by our association with the crime world. It is
also ironic that I called it a crime world, for we are just a minute too small
to constitute a world. A township or an organization perhaps.
Okay,
here goes.
We
were born to the ones who were associated with it. We lived a life where our
fathers and brothers fought with their lives to make sure we were alive. I was
a young girl when I was told how to use a gun. They say to take it, aim it, and
shoot it. I did, and a few weeks later, I shot the boy peeking through my
window. Anyway, I lived my life with boys; we do not have many girls in the
families; either a gene mischief here or our father’s wish for boys.
When
I was older, I got to know more about the others——what they do and how they do
it. It was then that then that I was told of Rome. I got all excited then; it
was new to me to know there were others like us, and I was scared because I
hardly knew what Rome would do to us. In the end, I did.
The
previous Caesar came to my home and told us that we needed protection. I was
not sure what it what it was, but I felt I needed it. It was not my idea to be
presented to Caesar, as said by many. I was an innocent child, but innocence
was as good as our virginity; it just needed to be taken off with one thrust.
Soon, I was the Queen; I was Queen; I was young and bitchy but I loved the
adoration given. I was with Caesar and then Mark Antony.
That
is the reason I am writing to you here.
After
Julius, I was still the Queen, but without a leading man in my life, I was
bound to be overthrown. You should know for you were married to a powerful man when
you were, then another, and finally Mark, at the request of Caesar. You could
have stayed away but do we really have any say in this organization??
I
did not marry Mark Antony. I merely ‘wed’ him; I performed all the rites of
marriage except uttering the vows of matrimony. It was a simple arrangement.
Did I know he was married? Yes, I did, but again we were not married in Egypt.
And whatever happens in Egypt remains in Egypt.
Mark
Antony affirmed my rank as Queen, and I will skip the lessons we learned. Men
are so manageable for us, the women. I guessed they never learned how to detach
themselves from the milk we held in us. In Egypt, life was as usual until he
was reminded that he had a wife named Fulvia (before you were one). We had our
arguments and he left. No woman wants to share her lover.
Soon,
he told me, or rather I was told by others, that he married you. Frivolous of
men to just get married when they fancy one My contention was that that I was
never married to him. He never proposed to me but claims to love me as his dear
wife. I am a dumb woman and I accepted his word or shall I say love?? A wedding
was all we had.
Ever
since you got married to him, he has come back to me. Why? I guess we all know
why but inside of me, there was this hollow feeling that I was not his wife at
all. I was not Julius either, although I bore him a son. With Mark, we never
did, though we enjoyed the carnal activities. (Oops, that should stay in
Egypt.)
For
the understanding between us, I am not his wife but one of his many lovers. You
can still call yourself Mark Antony’s widow. I am just the bitch he fucked. And
the wedding has been over since he died. In death, we may part but some
legacies do live on beyond that.
Your
husband’s bitch.’
Octavia
read the letter and tossed it in the fireplace. Her comment was, “Bitch.”
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