By Suzie True

Tomorrow I will be put to death Ann Boleyn-style; not a very original death except for the gothic setting, but there will be a surprise awaiting my lover.

It’s not too often that a toppling of a head can end an emperor’s rule. But he should have known better than to consort with a woman of my intellectual and physical prowess. He should have stuck to his lap-dog wives.

He thinks we are equals. How ludicrous. My beliefs are rooted in time-proven evidence and human potential, whereas his are rooted in faded texts meant for the consumption of that time, not for all eternity.

How we met was rather romantic. He had only three wives then. I imagine he has more now. I was a young, ambitious artist, educated in the slums of Los Angeles and universities in Milan and Cairo. I had seen but a bit of the world but knew that I had all the answers to life I would ever need.

When I met this Clark Gable-like man, with his flashy gray-green eyes and jet-black hair borne of Welsh and Algerian blood, I had all the juices in me boil out in the form of sweat and finer things, a physical reaction I attributed to time-tested, proven desire. At seeing his amused, knowing look, I disguised my juices with a sly, "not-a-chance" smile. He was introduced to me as "James Williams, emperor of Charazu." Mostly, he went on and on about the corruption of civilization. But as his tour guide, I took it upon myself to show him more than bronze statues and stone buildings. Cool waterfalls splashing over hot flesh, a fire to warm the shivers all made for much more interesting exploration. And against the wall of his inhibitions I chiseled bit by bit until I reached the stone of passion within which then slowly melted and breathed by itself and then with me.

I was fascinated at my power over him. While he ranted about lust and sin, I pleasured him into breathlessness. When he complained about the state of humanity, I sang to him. Over the two months of our affair, he became more than a toy. He became a luxury automobile, complete with rack-and-pinion steering and inexplicable breakdowns.

But the disturbing part of our affair was the outward exhibitions of his guilt. Lashing himself with my bras, my panties over his head while he moaned in a warped version of English.

And a mere breath later, he was out of my life and I continued exploring the world around me.

Ten years later, I could have chosen anywhere in the world to live, but I chose his island nation of Charazu, probably intending to make trouble and perhaps because I loved him still. Home to seventy-five thousand, verdant Charazu was a place easily run by an aggressive leader. And by the time I arrived, James was far more aggressive than the situation dictated. I had not been present to temper his text-inspired anger.

I came in the night from a nearby island, paying a boatman a year’s wages to brave the trip.

I dressed as Charazuans did, in robes of forged piety. By daybreak, I had spotted the symbol I detested and so many others in the world adored: the cross. I learned that this imposing monument had been made from the tallest tree and that all others within a kilometer square had been cut down. Another much lighter type of tree had been lashed to the tree’s neck. Surrounding the base were offerings of vegetables, fruits, dismembered animals, and flowers, all beginning to fester in the merciless sun.

Instead of being disgusted, I was amazed. He had exhibited signs of ruthlessness. But this plebeian display I thought was well beneath him.

A halter-top and mini-shorts would have been much more befitting. My robe was ridiculously hot and coarse. But I would go unnoticed this way.

I set a plan in motion. I spent months living in caves near the springs, feeding on small game and fish (much too much fish for my taste), as I popped in and out of the main square of the island. I saw glimpses of James, and with my 20/10 vision, I saw that his eyes were no longer flashy. They held only a veil of compassion and were fixed in uncompromising single-mindedness.

Not being multilingual, James had imposed English on the island’s inhabitants, a hard thing for those who operated mostly on clucks and animal mating noises, but passable over the years he’d been dictator.

I think I picked up the strange English dialect reasonably, for they did not reveal me to the authorities as an invader. I racked my brain for pithy sayings by philosophers I had studied, but came up with only my own renderings: "Be not stupid. Follow not a blind leader." "A man with a silly name is a silly man to be heard." "Should you be lambs for the slaughter or should you wear the lambs on your backs?" "Love your mother if she be good, love a god if he be good, but do not love an angry man." "Build upon bricks, and you will not get huffed and puffed down."

Within weeks my sayings had been transformed. "Don’t be dumb. You will be blind." "A silly name sounds funny." "Should you be lambs or lie with them?" "Love who you want, and be angry later." "Build and still be a pig."

But they served their purpose. Free thought took hold and some of the clucks and animal mating noises came back, a cacophony of freedom, a beautiful sound to behold, for awhile. Then it was on to public appearance. I stood on a rickety box under the cross, holding my nose, while thousands gathered to hear my funny freedom.

Some soldiers in purple robes arrived but stood silent as I spoke of greater things, love and wisdom, strapless dresses and rippling pecs. To punctuate my teachings, I yelled, "Behold skin!" as I peeled off my robe and stood in my birthday suit glory in front of the crowd. The clucks and animal noises increased in volume.

"Do as I do!" I yelled.

A few started tentatively, but when about ten had let loose, the result was like a tidal wave and I was blinded by pasty Caucasian flesh, most of it taut and defined but some of it causing an unpleasant rumbling in my tummy. And all the newly-released, dingly-dangly things made me want to laugh. Some were rising in orgiastic relief at being freed. Some wavered as they weighed the risks of punishment by James and the joys of freedom, while still others were covered by ashamed owners.

The clucking and noises continued for an hour, until it began to rain, and then these human animals covered themselves in mud and began to dance —

Until James pressed the duck-like air horn and coincidentally stopped the rain.

The people huddled together, some pulling on the mud-laden robes. I stood alone next to the broken box in front of the giant cross. Deciding against shimmying up the cross and possibly slicing my womanhood on splinters and becoming just another Jesus in the wrong place at the wrong time, I stood my ground and waited for his guards to grab me. They didn’t.

Instead, James had them form a circle around me and hold their knives out in my direction. As they walked, I was forced to walk, naked and wet or be skewered, while James walked outside the circle, his eyes turned forward, while I wondered what had become of my James, the one without the gut and toupee.

"You’ll be executed in the morning by a long metal blade on a wooden frame."

"Guillotine," I said.

"I don’t know German," he replied.

"James," I insisted. "Why?"

"I never studied it," he said as he marched away in self-righteousness.

And now I sat, like every other human awaiting execution, not even like an animal who is clueless about his imminent status as "fresh meat," and without the comforts that make us human, like some sex, thank you very much, or even more important, sleep!

I did not even get eight hours! Even before the sun rose, the purple-robed soldiers escorted me, with knives. And even knowing of my imminent death, that stupid tactic worked and I proceeded to the butcher block situated reverently in front of the cross. The butcher block had already been used in preparation for the post-decapitation feast. I cried foul at the utter lack of hygiene.

A few people clucked and made animal noises at me. The soldiers chased them away, but they returned. A huge crowd slowly gathered in silence.

Then James arrived, with the expression of an emperor who thinks he has clothes on but in fact doesn’t.

"Any last words?" James asked.

"Why have you changed so much?" I asked. "Is it because of your penis, the way it’s spotted yellow and gray?"

"You are vulgar and distasteful."

"You didn’t seem to mind then."

A soldier close to James turned to him. "This woman knows your penis? Isn’t that against one of the Ten Commandments?"

"No, that says you shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife. She was not married at the time."

The soldier put down his weapon.

Twelve yelling women descended upon James in short order. "Twelve wives were not enough?"

"I only had three at the time."

Three wives began smothering him with their robes. Even he had to see the irony of this. Mini-skirts would have certainly posed a lesser threat.

The crowd descended on the soldiers. The soldiers ran, dropping knives and peeling off their purple robes to indicate their abandonment of James and running buck naked far off into the distance, where a rim of unadulterated trees remained.

"Now what?" asked a Charazuan woman.

"You elect a leader," I said.

"How about you?" she suggested.

"Me? Are you insane?"

I took one of the abandoned knives and walked to the cross. In it I carved a representation of the island and divided it into eleven segments. "Each area elects its own official. Those officials elect one president."

"Like the electoral college of the United States?"

I looked at the woman in awe. "Yes."

"I guess we shouldn’t use punch cards."

"No, I suppose not," I said. "But with eleven officials, they can just use paper and pencil."

"What do we do with James Williams?"

"Let his wives do him justice."

There was laughter and clucking again.

"Does anyone have a boat?" I shouted.

"They were all destroyed years ago," said the woman.

I looked at the cross. "That might make a sturdy boat. What do you think?"

She looked thoughtfully at me and said, "I think, ‘Build and still be a pig.’"