This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

This is a little different because it’s so much easier when it’s someone else’s family. Who knew? The United Kingdom had their own Trump-like troubles. My late wife loved following the Queen and the British nobility. Too much soap opera for me, but for nostalgia’s sake I dropped in to see what the Windsor family have been up to lately. Holy shit! It was like walking in on a dish fight.

Honest to God. If I wrote this up and presented it as a movie script. They would run me out of town on a rail, even though the story has blockbuster written all over it. Our story begins many years ago. When our protagonist was being forced into a marriage against his will. He’s already got a steady girlfriend, but her bloodline is lacking. So pick again! Then, they, he, she, or who knows who, concocted a plot to marry him off to this sweet, unsuspecting, naïve young girl,  Diana from Sunshine Valley, someone Camilla thought would be easy to manipulate.

Our antagonist enters the story. The ready, steady girlfriend without the bloodline but with plenty of cunning. It’s Macbeth! Lock your bedroom doors at night! This one is worth watching. She’s got the prince by the nuts and she’s not letting go. Scandal or no scandal, the other woman now wants to be the Queen. After all the tragedy and heartache she’s personally caused. After all that, she wants to be the queen now. “Love me, everyone!” But Camilla worked hard and smiled for the cameras when called upon, and patted small children on the head whenever necessary, and it wasn’t long before long the Royal marriage was planned. She’d made it!

Enter the late Queen Elizabeth (The Wise) who saw Camilla coming from a mile away. Camilla was absolutely Trumpian and single minded in her desire to be/and or profit from being the Queen in more than just a royal bedchamber companion. Then one day, items were discovered missing from the royal vault. Gee, I wonder who ever did that? How many new keys have we issued in the last forty years? “Only one. Sir.”

Then there was the minor royal estate Camilla pushed to have turned into a retreat and convention center, and bed and breakfast. A little investigation found her son had already founded a management company. And it looked as if there was no way to stop them. Then from beyond the grave, an envelope arrived marked ER with a royal seal. Inside was a handwritten note from the late Queen herself, countersigned and witnessed by her attorney. Some few words along the lines, “Don’t you dare let that bitch sell this property! Not now and not ever! I forbid it! Do you hear? Liz.

Somehow, she just knew! Maybe she was a psychic or something. I got the distinct impression the late Queen probably spent a whole weekend writing such little notes. “Nope, you can’t sell this one either, Camilla!”

But remember that young girl they had used and abused so badly, before tragedy had struck? She had given birth to two male children. And one of them just became the new king. Odysseus is now home and about to clean his house. Camilla’s grandson got booted from the house for making fun of the new Queen. Two hundred years ago, he would gone to the Tower of London until the sun burned out. But Camilla was unhappy and ran to Daddy to fix it. But Daddy refused.

You see; this is the longest-running operation of its type in Western history. And like Fight Club, the first rule is? What did Michael say? “Fredo, you’re my brother and I love you, but don’t you ever take sides against the family again!” The king was hammered on the historical anvil. Forced to choose between his wife or his family, he chose family. Camellia had changed the seating at a royal service. Moving Princess Charlotte into the back of the room with the lesser children (Camilla’s brood of ruffians and future felons) The new King moved Charlotte’s place right back up front. There’s a new sheriff in town!

You don’t move anything around here lady, except your big fat ass out of the way, without asking the king first. Camilla was only trying to help, of course. She figured the king would like to see his daughter moved to the back of the room. She was so certain the king would approve, she moved little Charlotte without asking Mummy and Daddy’s permission first. It’s so cheesy and transparent! It’s absolutely Hollywood! Mirror! Mirror! No, little Charlotte can’t spend the weekend at Aunt Camilla’s house!

Now picture this: Princess Charlotte is Lady Diana Spencer’s granddaughter. That’s one leg up already! Plus, she’s cute like central casting sent her over. Disney, are you listening? Mirror, mirror on the wall! Who is the fairest of them all? “Not you! You old battle ax!” An aging dowager queen or the pretty young princess? (Lady Diana’s granddaughter for God’s sake.) Who do the crowds want to see?

So the dowager Queen runs to Daddy again and cries, “They’re trying to erase me! They’re trying to make me a queen in name only!” Pardon this Americanism, but Duh! BINGO!

They are trying to erase her because that is what always happens to dowager queens. They are queens in name only. As long as Charles still breathes, Camilla’s somebody. But the minute he stops, they’ll put her out with the cat. Geez, I’m shocked that Camilla didn’t know that? Don’t they teach this in school? Some dowager queens have had to run for their lives, penniless.

But Camilla had a plan (her staff had a plan.) to bring more of Camilla’s own family under the royal umbrella. A motion that was not carried, but somehow turned up rewritten and approved! It never would have withstood royal scrutiny anyway. The forensics were quickly traced back to, you already know who. Don’t you? It was her staff who did that of course, bad staff! Not the Queen herself, oh, heaven’s no! Daddy chooses the job over her. That’s no reason to suspect she’s behind this palace coup. Except, if you’re a royal family. Camilla is exactly the person you don’t want in your family.

I had called Camilla Cruella Deville even before knowing that Willian and Harry had also called her that too. It makes me feel a sort of kinship with William. You see; I had an evil stepmother too. But I never had the satisfaction he’s having. Camilla’s sister who worked for the crown was fired, without notice! When Elizabeth died and Chuck became King, his estates passed to William, and he became independent of the crown. William began to have the dowager queen and her little brood watched and a dossier compiled.

Lady Diana’s earrings were photographed being worn by Camilla’s daughter. When confronted, the daughter answered, smart as whip. “Mummy gave them to me! They’re mine!” Thanks, kid, thanks for covering for Mummy. Camilla was forced to turn in her key to the royal vault, and she was restricted from entering into certain rooms without permission. Humiliating for a queen. Even one who views everything through a jeweler’s loupe. Someone better check her pockets before she leaves!

The biggest loser here is poor King Charles. Was he a dupe all along? A helpless, hapless pawn? in the hands of a scheming manipulating sharpie harpy, all along? Thinking with his little king head instead of his big one? Or was he a willing participant in this evil scheme all along, now being smitten and bitten by the backlash of history.

I didn’t know that Charles had stepped away from his official duties and had turned things over to William. I bet Donald Trump doesn’t know that either. It explains Charles taking one for the team and spending the weekend with the Trumps. He didn’t have anything else to do.

It’s three stories in one. It’s “Beauty and the Beast” The ugly, wicked stepmother conniving against the pretty young princess. It’s Shakespeare, Macbeth marrying the assassin. It’s the story of a dowager Queen fighting to hold on to power as the new King takes over.

Wow, it’s like something out of a Hollywood movie. The first son of that young girl, so misused and mistreated so long ago, is now the King. The first son who was old enough to understand what his father had done to his mother. He also remembers what Camilla did. Odysseus is home!

When King William says he wants to streamline the Royal family. I think I know who he means.

“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say
that we devise their misery. But they
themselves- in their depravity- design
grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”
― Homer, The Odyssey