Anne

My Samhain (Celtic New Year, aka Haloween) story for this year, a little piece about Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry the VIII (2nd of 6, I might add) She was beheaded in the tower of London and her

 

 

Once I was loved. But no longer. Nothing remains now but an empty heart, stone cold from the ages of longing suffered. Hollow now, my eyes stare from the corners, watching, waiting, for the day when my freedom will be granted. Until then, I sit in these ancient pews, these rough pieces of wood, the same wood the block that assisted in my death was hewn from. Strange, is it not, that a thing of death and a thing of God should be made from the same tree? But nay, Christ died on a tree, and it became a thing of God. I can see it, sitting there, gaudily dressed in its attire of gold and jewels before the window of the chapel.   

  I recall the day I knelt before that very cross. I despised it then, for it represented what my husband had done to me. Changed an entire nation, for my sake, only to cast me aside, give me over to death, and all for a rumor, a lady in waiting and the curse of my heir-less womb. I despised it, but still I prayed. I prayed for Henry, for Elizabeth, even for Mary. I prayed for strength. Some say I am a Godless woman, but nay, if I am anything at all, it is a bitter woman that I am. Bitter for the way the world has delt with me, but who would not be in my place? Despised as a w***e, a witch, a temptress. I am in no way sinless, but theses are not my sins. My sins are pride, gluttony, but so are a thousand other's. Even my accusers suffered from these. I am far from perfection, but did that warrent my punishment? 

  But there is no regretting it now. What's done is done. I cannot retrace my steps, as much as I wish I might. I've wished that for hundreds of years. I have come to peace with this existence. This meaningless sense of being I am cursed to exist in. I can only sit and watch those with a life, with a being. How easily they take it for granted. They cannot know what there is when life is gone. I am not even sure I fully know. This fate is unusual, and not of my doing, no matter what they say. I am not angry. I do not seek justice, though I suffered injustice. There is nothing left for me here, so what have I to seek?

They forget I was a woman. I was a lover,a mother, a queen. They forget I had life, I had a soul, a heart, a mind. A mind, heart, and soul blindly given and I suffered for that blindness. I still suffer for it. I am cursed now to wander, an empty spirit, roaming in an empty world. I belong no where. Neither heaven nor hell. I do my penance in an earthly purgatory, cold and unfeeling. Surrounded by centuries of stones. My severed head in my hands, I wander in aimless misery. Recalling what once was while bearing a most hideous burden, for I am Anne Boleyn. 

 

 

"O death, rock me asleep, bring me to quiet rest, let pass my weary, guiltless ghost out of my careful breast." -Anne Boleyn

 

Reviews

[Chris]

theses? warrent?

A very well written and depicted time. The feel of olde English in the language and scope of your dialogue. It was a good read... thank you.

Chris

[Cicera]

Sometimes the curse is simply in the road of life itself the company that keeps us. We do walk the way by ourselves, everyone fades away initially in his own cell, but we don't really choose the people who will pop up from the bushes on the two sides of the road and walk with us. We cannot see which side they will come from, furthermore which side is the good one. The question of what I had and what I could have had is inevitable. The natural uncertainty about life culminates in that question. The fact that Jesus was a woman-just kidding-put a side, I like the way you press these self reflections over life and human condition on a feminine character that can readily polarise the problem of justice and injustice into a blind conflict of opposites. Those were difficult times when she lived, and so are todays.