I tried to sleep but I couldn't. So I tried to write a little something.
THE DAY WHEN JOSEF LEU WENT MAD
***
8.30 am
It had happened. The cantons were dissolved. Emperor Wilhelmus was now in total control.
And Josef - Josef found himself from a meeting of the conspiratists! He, Wilhelmus's most loyal servant and friend - backstabbing his master!
But there was no other choice. Wilhelmus was not from this world. Finaly Josef was ready to believe it. That demonic glare would haunt him for the rest of his life, he knew it. This nobleman who had at young age accepted Wilhelmus as his master out of pure boredom had finaly understood where it all would lead. He had already seen signs of it when he had been the president but now, after losing his power, he was finaly ready to admit it. Wilhelmus was a friggin maniac. No, more; a demonic person who was haunted by something from the beyond.
I was blinded by power. Oh, how sorry I am! In the streets of Geneva, when the federal assembly was dissolved, I could see the dark clouds. But I did nothing; for I enjoyed it! But now.. now I admit my mistakes.. now I can see the truth..
This conspiratist meeting was set up to discuss the possibilities of emperor Wilhelmus's assasination.
***
11 am
When the meeting was over, Josef was feeling confused and disturbed as he was walking to his home, a big ranch just outside Geneva. Only a few persons had attented the conspiratist meeting - it was as if the people weren't interrested. Maybe they were just so loyal to the emperor? Quite possibly, Wilhelmus had worked hard to make the people think that he was doing what was right for them. And the people had not seen his eyes.
That demonic glare, I have to get it away from my mind!
But he couldn't. Last meeting with Wilhelmus had been the worst for Josef. The way the emperor had looked at him.. he had been smiling but his eyes.. they had been.. filled with.. not hate, that would be the wrong word. Just lunacy. And something else. Something more. As if he had known that Josef was..
"ELEANOR IS DEAD!"
Josef stopped daydreaming and returned to reality. His wife. Eleanor. Dead. He didn't give a rat's ass. He had never loved his wife. He had hated her. She was ugly as hell, too. Josef had married her over money, after Wilhelmus had suggested it. And it had been a good suggestion; without that money, a poor nobleman wouldn't have been able to take over Switzerland. He had been in love once, though. The love of his life had been elsewhere: at the young age of 21, just before he had met Wilhelmus for the first time, he had dated an 18-year-old beauty called Anna. She had died. Everything dies.
Eleanor's heart had stopped. She was old, in her early 60's. She was a lot older than Josef. She was buried that afternoon, but Josef couldn't stop thinking about Wilhelmus. All the servants noticed how disturbed he was, but they thought it was because of the misery of losing his wife.
***
11 pm
It was getting late, but Josef couldn't sleep. He was sitting on a comfortable chair in his rather big library. He had read most of the books in those douzens of shelfs; he was indeed an educated man. But now he didn't think of what those books were saying. He couldn't get his mind of that demonic glare.
That glare..
that glare..
Then it hit Josef. The glare had been different. The last time he had met Wilhelmus, the glare HAD BEEN DIFFERENT!!
HE KNOWS!
How could he know? Had someone told him? No, Josef knew that it wasn't needed. Wilhelmus had strange abilities, Josef knew that. Maybe he had smelled Josef's betrayal? Either way, that lunacy in his eyes was unnatural. Even for him. Yes, he had known he had known..
Josef looked at the curtains. He had been looking for them for hours. Hours and hours, ever since the funeral ended. His mind was going crazy. Crazy like that cockoo-clock on the wall. A Swiss-made clock. He had started the program to sell Swiss cockoo-clocks to foreign countries a few year ago, when he was still the president. The economy had grown. Geneva had became a center of trade. And where was that money now? Wasted on soldiers. Soldiers marching. Stabbing other HRE soldiers who had accepted them to their camp as allies. When he closed his eyes, he could see those Swiss bayonettes crushing through the bones of sleeping HRE soldiers. How many had been killed? One thousand? One hundred thousand?
And poor Josef, he knew that he could have stopped that crazy man from making those decisions. Poor Josef blamed it all on himself.
Where did betrayals go in that old book written by Dante?
That glare..
that glare..
The purple curtains of the library slowly moved back and forth. Josef had been gazing at that for hours. And everytime the clock striked, he lost yet another piece of his sanity.
Tiktok, it said.
Tiktok, tiktok, tiktok.
****oo, ****oo, ****oo.
Eleanor is dead. ****oo.
He didn't saw the curtains anymore. He didn't hear the clock anymore. In a way he was in a peaceful state; for he didn't see the glare in Wilhelmus's eyes anymore either. In the back of his head, he could hear a voice. It was the voice of sanity, telling him not to be happy with it. Telling him that losing a grip on reality might not be a good thing. But that voice was toned down quickly, as a more important sound replaced it. It was the sound of the clock, which now represented all his moral mistakes. It represented every Genevan patriot now marching in line in front of their emperor. It represented every HRE soldier who was stabbed with bayonettes at the HRE-Italian border soon after Wilhemus had taken over. And he blamed it all on himself.
And the clock said Tiktok.
Tiktok. Tiktok.
Cockoo. Cockoo.
***
8.30 am
It had been 24 hours since the conspiratist meeting had ended. And Josef woke up in a hospital. Not a normal hospital, though. Nowdays it might be called a mental institute, but not back then.
"How are you doing?" asked Wilhelmus. He was sitting next to Josef when he woke up. "I left my palace immedately when I heard.."
It's a cave, not a palace!
"I'm doing.. fine. What happened yesterday? I can't remember a thing.."
"You.. I hate to say this but.. you were found digging up your wife's corpse from it's grave soon after midnight. You were brought here. I understand that you loved her and that you are.. disturbed.. afterall it all happened so quickly, you had to bury her almost immediately after hearing of her death.. so why won't you rest here for the day and come back work tomorrow.. or whatta hey, stay out as long as you feel is necessary."
"I.. can't remember.. but I didn't love her! I didn't!"
"Now now, Josef, you have been through a lot. But I'm sure you will get out later today. Now I have to go, I hope you'll get better soon!"
And then he did what Josef had been fearing for. The glare. Just before leaving, he gazed at Josef and gave him the glare. And Josef could see flames of Hell jumping out of those eyes into his head! He could actually hear such demons as Abaddon and Abigar. He had read about Abaddon and Abigar once. Abaddon was a destroyer demon while Abigar was more.. calm, yet twice as evil. He could tell the future and give military advice. Josef wouldn't have been surprised if some creatures as these had been helping Wihelmus. So he believed.
And that glare. It was too much. It was just too much for Josef. For he saw his own desperation in that glare; Wilhelmus knew. And that glare told him: "no, you aren't REALLY going to get out later today. I know what you have been up to. You think you could betray your own master? With this glare, my demons have jumped into you. You are now the lunatic. We both are. But one of us is in charge, and the other will spend the rest of his life in a hospital.."
Somewhere a soft voice of sanity tried to whisper: stop yelling. otherweise they will never let you out. EVER!
But Josef didn't understand this voice. He didn't even realize that he was yelling until after few hours. And when he stopped - after several hours - he had regained enough of his sanity back to realize that he would not be allowed to leave the hospital for many, many years.
And in his palace that looked a bit like a cave (altough a well-decorated one), Emperor Wilhelmus was smiling quietly.
***