THE EMPEROR´S CAULDRON

MICRO STORIES

Nicolás J. Marinelli

THE EMPEROR´S CAULDRON

"Show me what I want to see," the Emperor ordered the Cauldron, which brimmed with water and mysteries.

"Are you sure?" replied the voice that emerged from the watery depths.

"I command you to show me my glorious future. I want to see myself surrounded by luxury and power."

"More... than what you already have right now?"

The Emperor leaned over, putting all his weight on the Cauldron, and shook it, causing some of its strange greenish water to spill onto the palace floor.

"Don't get clever. With a single move, I could dry you up forever," the Emperor threatened, shaking off a few drops that had splashed onto his fine garments. "Many men died to bring you before me. You too will fall before my immense power if you don't cooperate. And call me 'Your Majesty,' like everyone else."

The Cauldron remained still. The concentric ripples on its surface stopped spreading, as they had done until then.

"It’s possible that what you see won’t be to your liking, 'Your... Majeesssty,'" the Cauldron replied, stretching the last word venomously. "What you will see will be so real and so impactful that you will never be able to erase it from your mind. Those images will trap you forever, Your Majesty."

"Do it now!" the Emperor shouted.

From the depths of those murky waters, fantastic images emerged: palaces of gold and ivory, jewels of every kind, mountains of diamonds and silver, farmlands overflowing with slaves, harems everywhere. Horses and wild beasts from all over the world appeared before him.

And in the midst of all that fortune, smiling and radiant, was him... the Emperor.

No matter what the sages, advisors, soldiers, or even the queen herself tried, there was no way to tear the Emperor away from that Cauldron and its cursed dreamlike waters. Everything he had ever sought, everything he had always desired, was there, so vivid, so beautiful. So real...

The sands of time did not delay in swallowing the memory of that distant kingdom, which left as its only proof of existence a ruined palace, where inside, a crowned skeleton was found, clutching a brittle, dried-up Cauldron.