Nero's Ghost

NERO’S GHOST

ROME

68AD



Emperor Nero lay in his bedchamber tossing and turning, visions of the dead haunted his mind. He ripped and pulled at the silk fabric that hung next to his bed and the mound of pillows that had surrounded him now a mess on the stone floor. His sobs and cries began to increase as the mighty ruler of the Empire of Rome cried out for help.

“No, please don’t,” he yelled out. “Mother don’t.”

“Sire, what’s wrong?” Suetonius, his servant boy said as he ran to his side.

Nero sat up from his bed looking horrified at the boy, his face white with fear. His eyes opened wide and darted from one side of the room to the next. He sprung from his bed and ran to the silk curtains that hung over the stone archway and out to the balcony that sat over the center of the city. Within a moment he was back into the room with sweat dripping off of his brow. He ran from corner to corner of the bed chamber looking around the empty room franticly, Nero grabbed and pulled the servant close to him.

“My mother?  Suetonius, where is she?” he asked. The boy looked puzzled for a moment before responding.

“Sire, I’m sorry but your mother is dead sir.”

“No, no she’s not she was just here with me. I know she was. You didn’t see her?” he asked.

Nero was lost by the look of confusion on the boy’s face and finally sent him away. Nero stared out the open balcony that looked out into Rome, the city not yet up with the moon still dominating the dark skyline of Italy. He picked up a cup of wine that sat on the stone table at the foot of his bed and drank it down. His hands were shaking as he stared into the empty cup and wiped a drop of red wine from his chin.

He had wished that at last he would be able to rest without the haunting, but it would not be so. The thoughts and images of her still plagued his mind as he attempted to sleep even all this time after her murder, his mother Agrippina would not let him rest.

As he sat back in the stone chair on the far side of the room he poured himself another cup of wine. He sat there for a long moment staring at the blank stone wall of his room sure he could hear the sound of a person close to him. He spun his head around so hard he hurt his neck.

Suddenly a breeze blew in to his room and over his face he heard her voice in his head. 

“You will never be alone.” It said. He closed his eye tight and grabbed his face with his hands digging his fingers into his skin.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Nero asked.

“You took my life, your own mother,” she said. “I gave you life and I gave you the power of Rome and this is how you repay me, by spilling my blood?”

“Stop get out of my head,” Nero jumped to his feet and threw his cup of wine across the room. It bounced off of the stone wall and landed on the floor. He stared down at the pool of red wine that collected at the base of the wall.

***

         The spirit of Vipsania Agrippina stood across the room and stared at Nero as he looked blankly at the stone wall. She silently made her way across the floor and looked at her son, felt his betrayal, she felt his guilt and fear of her presence.

“I will never let you rest and every time you lay down to bed I will be there to enter you mind,” she said to the Emperor.

Nero spun around just as she picked up a pitcher of wine off of the table and threw it across the room. It flew through the air and impacted just next to Nero, exploding off the stone wall. He jump back and landed in a ball on the floor just next to his bed as wine rained down on him. She stood over Nero, proud of her work as she looked down to her son, a mess on the floor of his bed chambers. She ran at him and threw her essence into his body. He twitched and stiffened for a moment as he lay in the wet wine. His body suddenly slid across the floor and his skull cracked on the stone wall.

Within moments the Emperor lost consciousness and drifted off into the blackness of his mind.

***

         As Nero opened his eyes he found things much changed. He was no longer in Rome, he was no longer anywhere, and a bright white light surrounded his body. Nero looked around and could see nothing past the blinding whiteness.

         A figure emerged from the distance and began to slowly move towards him. She was a woman of youth and beauty, a woman he knew as his mother. As she moved closer he realized she moved without moving her legs, she was floating just about the ground and glided closer to him. She kept her head down but did not take her eyes off of him. She had the look of innocents and at the same time the look of someone about to do wrong.

“Leave me alone!” he yelled at here. She said nothing in response to him; she just shook her head as she came closer and closer. Nero struggled to his feet, but was unable to do so.

“Look how you have led Rome.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Rome loves me.”

“Just this year alone you have had several uprisings and the food shortage among the populous is getting out of hand, soon they will be rid of you.”

“I care not,” Nero responded.

“That is my point.”

“What are you getting out of tormenting me this way,” he asked.

“It is you that is keeping me her. As long as you live I will be trapped close to you,” she said, “But fear not my son your last days are close at hand.” Suddenly her face began to blur and the white light over powered his eyes. He shut them tight and when he opened them again he found several men standing over him with pale faces and sweat dripping off of their brows.

***

Several servants to the Emperor and Epaphroditus, his secretary stood looming over the Caesar. Epaphroditus stood behind reluctant show himself.

“What is it, why are you here,” Nero asked as he looked around the room as if he was looking for something.

“It’s another uprising, Sire,” said his secretary. “We have to get you to safety.”  Suddenly Nero could hear yelling as screaming coming from the streets below the palace. He ran out to his balcony and could see a mass of men running to the steps of the Palace holding weapons and torches. Several of the men were soldiers of Rome.

“Sire you have lost the support of the army and the senate has declared you a public enemy. You must leave Rome,” his secretary said.

“I have now where left to go?”

“We have all ready dispatched messages to friends and allies but none have responded, Sire,” said Epaphroditus.

“Have I neither friend nor foe?”

“It appears not.”

Nero got up and ran through the doors as fast as he could. He ran to the front of the palace in an attempt to make it out of the city. He soon realized he would never make it to the Tiber River where he had intended to throw himself to his death.

“You’ll never make it,” said the voice of his mother in his ear. He shook his head to clear of his thoughts and ran back to his chambers.

Suddenly a message arrived for the Caesar, a boy ran into the room carrying a letter. Epaphroditus tore it open and read its contents. His eyes were fixated on the piece of paper for a moment then looked up to the Emperor with his eyes wide.

“Sire an imperial freedman is offering his villa for you, located 4 miles outside the city,” he stated. “If we act quickly we can make it.

***

         Moments later Nero with the help of the three servants and his Secretary snuck out of the city in disguise. As he walked slowly through the grassy hills of Rome his Ghost would not stop taunting him.

         “Just kill yourself, son, that’s the only way you’ll ever get through this.” He closed his eyes tight in an attempt to shut her voice out of his head.

“Are you ready to die,” she asked him. “Or do you think you can actually escape the Roman guards?”

“Leave me alone,” he yelled at her.

“Sire, you must remain silent,” his servant said to him.

“Over there Sire,” his secretary said as the villa came into sight. Just as they found the spot a message arrived from the city. A boy ran by the villa yelling the news.

“The Senate has declared Nero a public enemy and it is their intention to execute him by beating him to death.” This news horrified Nero.

“I will not die in that manner,” he said. “Dig me a grave.”

“You’re going to kill yourself? Do you really have the stomach for that my son?” Nero ignored the words of his mother as the servants began to dig and the ground. After several moments Nero produced a knife from his belt and looked at it for a moment. Unable to do it he turned to Epaphroditus and handed him the knife.

“Will you take my life?” he asked.

“Sire, you don’t have to die. We’re our out of Rome,” Epaphroditus said.

“We may be out of Rome, but I will not be hunted down like this any longer.” Epaphroditus looked at the slave boys for a moment then back to Nero and then down to the long blade in the Emperors hands. He reluctantly reached out and took the blade from him.

“Do it,” Nero said. The man drew his arm back and thrust out pushing the blade into the flesh of the Caesar. Nero dropped to his knees as the blood ran from his body he held onto the knife in his gut and looked up into the face of his servants.

“What an artist dies in me!” he said as he fell over in death.

***

         Nero looked up to see his mother standing over him.

She had a smile on her face, “So you died in the same manner as I when you ordered you’re soldiers to kill me. Did it hurt?” she was all most laughing at her son on the ground now red from his blood.

“Why are you still here?” he asked her. She said nothing she stared at him and began to laugh, her voice filled his ears. Nero grabbed his head into his hands and fell onto the ground as tears began to fall. Nero feared he would have to go through the rest of time with his ghost haunting him.

“Why are you still here?”

“Oh you will not see me again. You had the privilege to choose you’re death as for me it was wrongly taken from me. Now you are trapped here as I am free to go see the boat man finally, I hope you have a love of Roma because you will never leave?” she stated as she disappeared.

She looked around and felt a peace she had not felt for some time as she got up and felt no pain. She made her way over to the boatman waiting patiently by his long wooden craft floating in the river of the dead and she knew she would soon be at peace.

THE END