The colours were amazing…everywhere I looked there was the dazzling bone white of clean linen like human-shaped clouds drifting through the streets, slashed through with the blood soaked red of sashes and neckties. All around the faded yet warm and inviting yellow and browns of the apartment blocks where people had garlanded flowers of deep purple (so dark like the grapes) that grew on the hillsides around, suddenly a shout of exclamation, fear and exhilaration combined, as the beasts were let loose. Their hides jet black like the gloomiest recesses of unlit alleyways at night, in Victorian days, eyes of burning black coal bored into me each time I looked over my shoulder, horns yellow white with edged slits of black. The thundering noise of hooves along cobbles, I pull to the side as I can run no more. One stops and turns and stares me straight in the eye. The moment is frozen. It seems to smile and say with a pulse in my mind, ‘Born May the 3rd you were’. Maybe that’s why there is an affinity between this Taurus and I. He turns and resumes his headlong charge down the street.
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The noise is so loud it’s like it’s pressing within my ears. There are people everywhere – all different races, colours and sizes. The huge stone rotunda stretches above me, seemingly all the way up to the seats of the gods. All around us the crowd parts as I am with the most famous man in Rome. Caesar himself! I am in the sagest of company, yet all I can smell is the filth and corruption of this once-great city – the sweat of the labourers and slaves mingled with the sweet pungent stench of the ruling classes. We enter the theatre dedicated to the memory of Pompey: a gutless weasel of a man, but a fighter and a general beloved of the mob. The sense of foreboding yet tinged with the knowledge of freedom and release attacks my instincts with the ferocity of the wild beasts let loose in the arena of games. The dagger in my hand concealed within my robe seems suddenly plunged into the body of my friend, as if I am possessed of another and have no control. He lies on the steps, his scarlet life draining away. He pulls me to him close, as his odd-coloured eyes stare into mine. A slight gasp escaped his lips, then his words like whips of fire to my soul: ‘Et tu Brute!’
by Mario
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