The Queen is Dead
I woke, stumbled out of bed, made my way to the kitchen on automatic-zombie. Switched on the kettle, turned on the telly...
At first tiredness muffled the News caster's mournful mumbling of enunciated whispers. But as I sat, wiping away gooey white streaks of sleep from my eyes, the gravitas-laden tones of the BBC began to penetrate my consciousness:
"It's now thought that her Majesty the Queen passed away sometime between 3 and 4 am this morning. Early reports seem to confirm that her Majesty committed suicide..."
I sat slack-jawed. The Queen had killed herself! Reached for the remote control, turned up the volume, sat aghast as more revelations were revealed:
"We're now joined by Mr. Herbert Smythe, biographer and long-term confidante of the Royal Household. Mr. Smythe, as an authority on the Queen and her life, are you as shocked at the extraordinary manner of her death? I mean it seems so out of character..."
Herbert Smythe went on to postulate on what may have caused the Queen to take such drastic action. He explained that it was almost undoubtedly due to the recent publication in the press of private photographers from the Queen's youth. I wondered how I'd missed this recent furore, but thankfully the entire subject was quickly recapped -
It transpired that some sensational images of the young Queen had somehow "turned up" and been sold to the Tabloids. They were obviously form the "Swinging Sixties"; old, grainy, black and white prints imbued with the atmosphere of some stylish French film.
They were deemed so scandalous because they portrayed a casual, care-free Queen enjoying life with gay abandonment. There were shots of her pulling faces, flirting with the camera, smoking cigarettes, lazing and lounging in provocative poses and caught in romantic embraces with none other than Bob Dylan!
Herbert Smythe went on to explain that for a brief period, during Dylan's first visit to England, he and her Majesty had enjoyed an incredibly intense whirl-wind romance. The young royal, already besotted with his poetic lyrics, invited him to a secret dinner at Buckingham Palace. At that very first meeting her Majesty fell head over heels in love with the scruffy, beatnik bohemian and for a few fraught weeks their clandestine relationship threatened, not only to destroy her marriage, but to fracture the very foundations of the British "Establishment".
They failed to mention precisely how the Queen had chosen to take her life, but their seemed to be an unspoken implication that it was a gruesome, violent method, "too shocking" to reveal in any detail.
The Newscasters were visibly upset and ashen, correspondents voices were trembling and there long pauses of silent paper-fumbling, malfunctioning links and a noticeable lack of autocue. The studio was in disarray. No one had been prepared for this. And no one would be going to work today. Tony Blair had declared a national day of mourning.
The news rolled on in a continuous loop, but that particular segment ended with the News Reader's noting that:
"At present Bob Dylan has declined to comment"
At first tiredness muffled the News caster's mournful mumbling of enunciated whispers. But as I sat, wiping away gooey white streaks of sleep from my eyes, the gravitas-laden tones of the BBC began to penetrate my consciousness:
"It's now thought that her Majesty the Queen passed away sometime between 3 and 4 am this morning. Early reports seem to confirm that her Majesty committed suicide..."
I sat slack-jawed. The Queen had killed herself! Reached for the remote control, turned up the volume, sat aghast as more revelations were revealed:
"We're now joined by Mr. Herbert Smythe, biographer and long-term confidante of the Royal Household. Mr. Smythe, as an authority on the Queen and her life, are you as shocked at the extraordinary manner of her death? I mean it seems so out of character..."
Herbert Smythe went on to postulate on what may have caused the Queen to take such drastic action. He explained that it was almost undoubtedly due to the recent publication in the press of private photographers from the Queen's youth. I wondered how I'd missed this recent furore, but thankfully the entire subject was quickly recapped -
It transpired that some sensational images of the young Queen had somehow "turned up" and been sold to the Tabloids. They were obviously form the "Swinging Sixties"; old, grainy, black and white prints imbued with the atmosphere of some stylish French film.
They were deemed so scandalous because they portrayed a casual, care-free Queen enjoying life with gay abandonment. There were shots of her pulling faces, flirting with the camera, smoking cigarettes, lazing and lounging in provocative poses and caught in romantic embraces with none other than Bob Dylan!
Herbert Smythe went on to explain that for a brief period, during Dylan's first visit to England, he and her Majesty had enjoyed an incredibly intense whirl-wind romance. The young royal, already besotted with his poetic lyrics, invited him to a secret dinner at Buckingham Palace. At that very first meeting her Majesty fell head over heels in love with the scruffy, beatnik bohemian and for a few fraught weeks their clandestine relationship threatened, not only to destroy her marriage, but to fracture the very foundations of the British "Establishment".
They failed to mention precisely how the Queen had chosen to take her life, but their seemed to be an unspoken implication that it was a gruesome, violent method, "too shocking" to reveal in any detail.
The Newscasters were visibly upset and ashen, correspondents voices were trembling and there long pauses of silent paper-fumbling, malfunctioning links and a noticeable lack of autocue. The studio was in disarray. No one had been prepared for this. And no one would be going to work today. Tony Blair had declared a national day of mourning.
The news rolled on in a continuous loop, but that particular segment ended with the News Reader's noting that:
"At present Bob Dylan has declined to comment"
posted by The Dreamer | 3:14 AM
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