The Queen

The queen arrived on her throne, a little late, for she needed to ensure that all her vestments were in place. ‘Vestments,’ a word no longer in use, except perhaps when referring to ecclesiastical garb. The queen, however, chose to use this diction in order to confer to her attire a regal aspect. Born of a black merchant who made his fortune in blood and diamonds, she established her court from a throne upholstered somewhere between Harlem and Timbuktu. She oscillated between man and woman and woman and man. She removed her brassiere in order to reveal to her friends a male chest ridden with hair.

The queen splurged all or at least most of her ancestral wealth on a vacation during which she purchased some of the most expensive garments known to man. At some later juncture in her life, in an attempt to recover her misspent fortune, she would have a yard sale in her salon, for which purpose she would invite false dukes and princesses, some of who would at least promise to buy the queen’s vintage costumes, while others would buy things largely on credit.

The self-appointed title of ‘Queen’ and with it her complete persona was the result of a mere painting she chanced upon, upon which she fashioned her entire appearance—countless clandestine plastic surgeries and gender transitions performed in the confines of her private bathroom with a pair of mere household scissors.

*

The queen’s animal spirit is a rooster, which should not come as a surprise. All her life, ever since she was a sixteen year old girl, she wanted to be a poet of world renown and just like Prince, she wanted to be referred to as Queen, having people listen to her read from her endless books of poems.

She was no doubt a talented poet, but lacked the connections—how un-queenlike— needed to make her name known, even in her own kingdom; her salon was a small garret the queen had the audacity to call ‘salon’ and sometimes even referred to it as her ‘court’. She had acquired theatre props from left-overs of a Shakespearean play performed in the city a long time ago: a crown, robes and even a wand. The queen was one of those wizards who hadn’t performed any of her miracles yet.

If someone were to ask what she desired most in life, she would not hesitate to immediately say, ‘Drama’, for more than peace or happiness, she wanted each day to have at least some narrative arc. As a result, she sought fights where there were none and sometimes even deliberately disturbed the course of her life to add an element of surprise and pathos. A drama queen, who suffered from insomnia, often spent her lonely nights inside her wardrobe—trying all her clothes, especially the dresses she had not worn in years, staring at her image in the mirror.

Already in her mid thirties, the queen realized that she could not keep a job, the reason for which being that she imagined herself of direct aristocratic lineage. Knowing that no job would work for her, the queen began to direct her energies towards her appearance, the entirety of which was deliberate. Even the crop of moustache was intentional, a device to confound the viewer in regard to the true gender of the queen. Ironically enough, her (male) breasts were not a result of those carefully orchestrated and endless plastic surgeries, but protrusions that bloomed on their own accord, already at a young age. With a strict exercise regimen and controlled diet, the queen ascended her shaky throne, all the way up in her garret, hidden from the rest of the city by virtue of a mantle made of black silk.

The queen had a particular penchant for the ‘Sturm und Drang’, especially because she felt she embodied it in her person. Her life was simultaneously filled with excesses, and the will to destroy herself just as she thought she was building herself up. In fact, she often could not even tell the difference, at least initially, between the two. She knew that she was throwing away the possibility of building a regular domestic life— with a king— in her shabby throne in her garret—a veritable chair surrounded by ancient tea-pots coupled with a view of a junkyard.

Well-wishers warned the queen, during her descent; they said don’t let opportunity slip away from your fingers, to which the queen retorted, “I fancy becoming a designer of fashion. I want to be queen of my own domain, not some minstrel servant beckoning to calls.” Perhaps, the queen would get a footing in this world only later on in life; her crown would bloom just when she were to think that it was the end of her, the queen’s demise. Surprisingly, she would be raised all of a sudden, without warning, spiraling towards unexpected heights.

(Gaurav Monga is an author originally from New Delhi, India.)