Once upon a time...
It was Goldman who gave me the bad news.
“She’s dying,” he said, speaking words that could get him hung for treason. He was the Queen of England’s official biographer, and an old friend of mine.
I shook my head wistfully. It was hard to believe that my one true love has sat on the throne for 65 years, which, coincidentally enough, is the same amount of time she's been Queen.
I guess I should begin at the beginning.
At the beginning of World War Two, when she was still a princess in her teens, I was hired to clean out the royal stables. Back then, her two favorite pastimes were riding her horse and tormenting me. She knew my name, but never called me by it, and nothing gave her as much pleasure as ordering me around.
“Stableboy, polish my horse's saddle. I want to see my face shining in it by morning.”
“As you wish.”
“As you wish,” was all I ever said to her.
“Stableboy, clean the stables.”
“Stableboy, feed my horse.”
“Stableboy, brush him down.”
“As you wish.”
The day came when she was amazed to discover that when I was saying, 'As you wish,’ what I meant was, 'I love you.' Even more amazing was when she realized that she truly loved me back.
”Stableboy, fetch me that pitcher…. please.”
I was a commoner and had no money or prospects, so I packed my few belongings and left the palace to seek my fortune across the pond, in America. After I left, she went into her room and shut the door. For days she neither slept nor ate.
“I will never love again,” she told herself, but that wasn’t true. There was one thing she loved more than me. The kingdom she would one day rule.
And that love was true.
I thanked Goldman and left immediately for Great Britain. It was Morgenstern, the head caretaker of Buckingham Palace, who met me at the gate and snuck me in through the back door of the palace.
“You must hurry,” he told me. “She’s hanging on, but barely. She says she won’t leave this world without saying goodbye to you first.”
He rushed me into the palace, and we went directly to her room. Down the hallway, before we were even close to the door, we heard screaming. Not the screams of mourners, but the screams of people in terror. There were several gunshots, and then there weren’t any at all.
I ran.
I shoved the door open and fell back in horror.
The first thing I saw was her husband. He lay crumpled on the floor. A broken doll, blood everywhere. A surprised look still on his face. Two of her guards also lay dead on the floor.
By the time Morgenstern caught up with me, he practically fainted at the sight. His knees sagged. I lifted him up. He seemed to get his strength back, and then took off running back down the hall. Saving himself, I thought, but I was wrong.
The Queen was standing. Her eldest grandson, the second in line to the throne, stood in front of his wife, protecting her, but it was no use. The Queen grabbed his head between both her hands and crushed it like a grape. His wife fared no better.
His younger brother cried out, “Mum! Mum!” but that only drew her attention to him.
She staggered over to him, her mouth smeared with blood. He fell to the floor in tears.
“No, no!” he blubbered.
The Queen gently took her grandson into her arms, and tore his throat out with gnashing teeth.
The young prince’s floozy girlfriend was cowering within feet of her dead boyfriend, but the Queen ignored her, as if her tainted blood was too dirty to eat.
I looked around.
There was nobody.
It was up to me. I went into that room and picked up a gun from one of the dead guards. The Queen’s back was to me. The sound of flesh tearing was almost too horrible to take, but I had no choice. What I was about to do would guarantee me the death penalty.
Zombie or not, you don’t kill the Queen.
I walked cautiously behind her. I didn’t make a sound, but she turned slowly to look at me, somehow knowing I was there. Her eyes--dead eyes--looked at me. I crossed the few feet that were left between us, and I knelt. She didn’t move. She stayed where she was, looking at me.
I took the gun and put it under her chin, facing upward. When I pulled the trigger I knew it would blow the top of her head off, but I had to do it. Kill her brain and the rest of her would die.
She continued to look at me. I knew it was impossible, but her eyes seemed to moisten with tears. I don’t know if she knew who I was, but I knew who she was and what we once meant to each other.
That’s why I couldn’t do it.
I lowered the weapon, my hand falling to my side, and dropped it to the floor. I wanted to take her in my arms and hug her a final time, but I wasn’t stupid. It would be a final time, all right. MY final time.
I stood up and walked to the door.
She didn’t move.
I looked at her one last time, and she turned away as if not wanting me to see her the way she was. I exited the room and shut the door behind me. I leaned back against it, exhausted. I was seconds away from crying or going insane.
I heard running from down the hall. Morgenstern was coming back with the Prince of Wales. He hadn’t run away after all. He had merely ran to get the next King of England.
Bad mistake.
He should have ran for reinforcements instead.
“Move!” the Prince yelled, ordering me.
I wasn’t purposely blocking him from entering the room, but it may have seemed that way. There was a personal animosity between us. He knew of my history with his mother, and he resented me for it.
“I demand that you let me in that room!” he yelled.
I didn’t move.
“GUARDS!”
I paused, and then got out of his way.
“As you wish,” I said.
American Chimpanzee
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