As the enormous, although eerily bland palace came into view, I attempted to gulp down myfear and appear confident. Failing utterly at that, a meek shuffle toward the broad front doorswere all I could manage. It was a simple interview, second line in my hastily written jobdescription. The fact that it was with your everyday megalomaniac didn’t exactly beat my fearinto submission though. Knowing that the man I was about to interview ruled all of Rome as of 67 AD didn’t quite accomplish the task either. Blood red stairs under my feet propelled my pear-shaped frame up to the two guards at the top rather quicker than I would’ve preferred.

As the enormous, although eerily bland palace came into view, I attempted to gulp down myfear and appear confident. Failing utterly at that, a meek shuffle toward the broad front doorswere all I could manage. It was a simple interview, second line in my hastily written jobdescription. The fact that it was with your everyday megalomaniac didn’t exactly beat my fearinto submission though. Knowing that the man I was about to interview ruled all of Rome as of 67 AD didn’t quite accomplish the task either. Blood red stairs under my feet propelled my pear-shaped frame up to the two guards at the top rather quicker than I would’ve preferred.

The bulky, dim looking man squinted at me with barely concealed disdain and reluctantly
shuffled to the side.
“Thanks…” I mumbled humbly while his lopsided companion kicked the door open roughly.
Just before he shoved me in brutally, the first man whispered deliberately to his co-worker, just
loud enough for me to hear,
“Ya think this one will have his head nailed onto the wall or get cooked in oil and…
consumed?” He spoke the last word with a foreboding air of menace. I knew it was just
unpleasant banter but my stomach lurched nevertheless as all my terror flared into existence
once more. For a moment, the horrendous scene before me didn’t register within my brain.

Then
it hit me with the force of a flying elephant! The walls were lined with rows of skulls, human
and animal alike. Some were so gruesomely disfigured that I didn’t even realize that they were
human at first, while others were so small, just like that of a human child. As I stood in
shock and bewilderment, an obese servant with a snide look on his pasty face strolled towards
me as if he had all of this century to do it.
“Well, come on you blithering idiot,” He declared obnoxiously in a high-pitched, bubbly voice.