InsaneJournal

Prompt #39

"You don't mind where you are because you know where you've been..." - Carbon Leaf

"Oh, that's a nicely two-pronged one." Cesare looks up slowly. He gets up slowly, too. Walks over to the windows and opens the curtains. "Look for yourself. Do I mind? Well. Do you? I'll say, it beats lying dead in a ditch. It beats sitting in a moldy prison with only my ulcers and sores to keep me company. But does it hold a candle to where I was before all that?" Fingers twisting into the curtains, he starts to laugh, involuntarily hitting his forehead against the glass. He sheepishly rubs his brow, then laughs some more. "Yes, very funny. Let's not even start though, shall we," he chuckles, wiping away tears. Whether they signal mirth or misery, he doesn't know. "Let me put it like this: Considering the various ups and downs of my fate - its sheer malignant vagaries - from a classical, a humanist's point of view, I think it's rather obvious that there was Lady Fortuna, spinning her Wheel - me - this way and that. Looks like she rather enjoyed it, too."

"But wheels," - now he stops laughing, props himself up on one elbow - "can be used for other things, too. Church history tells us so. And I promise you this: if I ever get hold of the bitch, I'll use her Wheel to smash her bones to a bloody pulp. Saint Catherine of Alexandria could win a fucking beauty pageant next to what I'd leave of Fortune." He closes his eyes, falls back into the same languid inertia as before. "So, do I mind? Like I said. It has its perks."