This piece originally appeared in DUM DUM Issue No. 3, PUNKS & Scholars.
As Napoleon Reincarnate, my first demand is that all islands be filled with giants until their collective weight causes the soil to crumble into the sea. Anyone with the name of Helena must be executed by the approaching dawn (approximately eight hours away from the close of my composition of this). I would like, since this is my first “coming out” into society since death, to be baptized with water from a brook in Switzerland. I would like to sport the newest trends. If McQueen is able, he shall design my new wardrobe. I need a haircut and a clean shave.
My wife, Marie Louise of Austria, great niece of Marie Antoinette, must be dead too, no? Or is she among the ranks of the reincarnated? This is 2008, I do believe. If she is alive, I do not want her. Her breasts must have taken a beating in death. I can’t imagine them as benevolent, as desirable.
Everything is gaudier than I would have expected. I went on a walk yesterday morning, right after I somehow woke in a room of sculptures at the Louvre–got a hot chocolate, rinsed my face in the Seine, and walked across Pont Alexandre III with a strong urge to summon a mistress. I have been neglected there, you see, in death. I would enjoy a midnight swim with a beautiful woman.
But the gaudiness! How I digress. These people are practically making love on the streets. Thusly, children have an air of discontent, and this is such that they must weep on the daily about their lacking hearts. These eight-year-olds, maybe, or thirteen (though that was reasonable marriage-time in my reign), must let love haunt themselves. We are living in a sea of virgins! This is why, I believe, they are poorly dressed. Their energies are spent on seduction, something they cannot quite reach–instead of something as simple as looking good. I mandate, then, that each home have not only a personal stylist but a therapist in reach at all hours. For these people are mad! Their cheeks are blushed with perpetual embarrassment. I am a kind man, yes, I am a good scholar and thinker. So these words must be acknowledged, printed in the most revered newspaper, regarded by the famous. I demand to be the prophet.
My advice may be worth instilling even more, as I am a stoic man. Here is how we must all behave, as heard in a Dead Kennedys tune (Kill the Poor, I do believe):
Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate’s gone
Feel free again
O’ life’s a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it’s okay
So let’s get dressed and dance away the night
Reader of this, if you are wealthy, if you are well-to-do, if you possess candor and eloquence, I want you in my ranks. I’m also looking for the largest apartment in the city and hope to acquire ownership in the next fortnight. Until then, I will stroll through the Tuileries garden. I will then approach the concierge at Hotel Le Meurice and demand they admit me until my circulation betters, until I am as dashing as historians say I once was. Even Dali said he wanted to be me. I am want-able. I have women swooning. I am on their minds when they slip out of their dresses at night and jaunt across their bedchambers to their lovers (lesser than me, no doubt). I am on your mind, too, and hope you won’t deny it. The world is singing my name.
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AM Ringwalt is a writer of fiction and poetry from Racine, Wisconsin. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in OF ZOOS, BROWN GOD, 4’33”, Cargoes, and Hanging Loose. Also a lo-fi folk songwriter and musician (recording name: Anne Malin), her second CD’s debut is this Christmas.
Figure illustration by Robey Clark