March 15, 2018
Caesar dreamed that he was sitting with the senate, moments before the attempt on his life. He sat next to Brutus, listening in on his conversation with Cassius. “When is Cimber going to give us his signal,” Brutus asked, eyes narrowed to thin slits.
“Patience, Brutus, our man will come through for us,” Cassius replied.
“He better, otherwise all of Rome is doomed to the will of a megalomaniac.”
Cassius smiled, “Cimber knows that, which is why he won’t fail us.”
Caesar’s eyes trailed up to the orator’s circle. He saw himself standing there. What a strange perspective it was to see himself from this angle. Finally, Cimber approached him. Caesar yelled out from behind Brutus, “It’s a trap, run!” But no one heard him. He was forced to watch everything that followed. First, Cimber yelling out to the senate, “Now brothers! Now is our time!” Then the senators rushed, Cassius in the lead, to take turns stabbing him. But before any real damage was done, the Caesar on stage was gone. Vanished right before the senate’s eyes.
Cassius was the first to call out, “Where did he go?”
Silence blanketed the room until Marc Antony, Caesar’s best general, ran into the room. He panned across the blank faces, then shouted, “What have you done with Caesar!?”
No one answered him.
“Traitors,” he cried out. “You are all traitors!” Antony ran out of the building. Caesar followed Antony, who was traveling to meet with Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia.
In the dream, Caesar appeared in his home, just as Antony burst through the door. “Calpurnia,” Antony cried out, “Calpurnia!”
Running towards the entrance, Calpurnia was already in tears, “They did it, didn’t they?”
Antony looked to the ground. He couldn’t look at Calpurnia, “I. I wasn’t there to protect him. I’m so sorry.”
Calpurnia’s sobs turned into mournful wailing. She knelt on the ground, her head placed in her palms, “I told him not to go. Why wouldn’t he listen to me?”
Antony took a step closer. He put a hand on her shoulder, “Calpurnia, we need to go. Get Augustus. We need to leave now.”
A huge bang in the abandoned warehouse jarred Caesar awake. Rain dripped through the broken windows, wetting the moldy walls. In the light of day, the building looked far worse than Caesar first thought. He heard a couple of steps echo, “Old man. Where are you?”
More steps echoed. Clearly, more than one person was in the building.
“Tisk tisk tisk,” a voice rose above the sounds of feet, “Is that any way to greet your guests?”
Three men appeared from around a corner. The man in the middle held something in his hand while the other two grinned a little too wide.
A gun clicked as the trigger was cocked.
