“Ha! When I was sixteen my mother had my uncle poisoned and put me under her control! I
couldn’t decide anything; she dictated everything I did from how to trim my fingernails to
when I should go to the washroom.” My heart was pounding furiously by the time his sentence
was finished. This was definitely something previously undiscovered, who would’ve known
that Agrippina had a hand in noble Claudius’ death? I suddenly realized that Nero was still
gazing into the wall with a faraway look on his eccentric face.
“Your majesty… sir? Are you there” I stammered, apprehensive of his sudden mood changes.

“What… oh yes Octavia I’m coming right now…” He said blankly. From there I proceeded
to ask him a variety of typical questions such as the Armenian war and the Gaius conspiracy.
To my disappointment, Nero did not reveal any more shocking revelations and merely responded
with monotypic answers that only a child would not know. Hoping to jar him into spilling the
beans, I suddenly exclaimed,
“Why did you kick your second wife to death?” Nero was caught aback by this sudden
outburst, as I had been talking as though speaking to a toddler for the whole interview.
“She broke my clay duck! Oh, my poor clay duck…” And with that Nero began to sob like an
infant, loud and piercing. Within moments, an entire battalion of troops burst into the room
and surrounded me. Nero was still sobbing, so the soldiers started an attempt to cheer him up.

Laughing inwardly at their stupidity, I slipped out of the room without anybody so much asglancing up. Quickly making my way back to the Roman Times office, I examined my notes onemore time. History was in the process of being made, and my name was going to be in the thickof it! Little did I know that my wife’s previous husband had hired a gang of mercenaries toassassinate me, and that within minutes I would be dead. I was equally oblivious to the factthat all the scandals I’ve exposed and recorded in my notebook, waiting for the right momentto reveal them, would be submitted to my boss under a different name. Of course, themercenaries were told to tell me this as I lay dying, furthering my agony and insuring that Idied miserably…