Chapter VII.

The Epilogue of Empire

🎭 Scene I
Setting: First-class compartment on a train from London to Greystone.
Time: Daytime, gray fields outside, fog, monotony.

Characters:
– Lord Wetherby, an aristocrat with a conspicuous lack of interest in reality.
– Sir Rupert, an old schoolmate, the kind who could eat a marmalade sandwich at a funeral and not betray a single emotion.
They sit across from each other, alone in the compartment. Silence. The rhythmic clatter of wheels. Hours pass. Finally…

– Sir Rupert: Boring, Sir.

– Lord Wetherby: (after a long pause) Oh yes. Boring, Sir.

Another hour passes. The landscape remains unchanged.

– Sir Rupert: But very boring, Sir.

– Lord Wetherby: (after some thought) Oh yes. Very boring, Sir.

The train slows. Lord Wetherby glances at Sir Rupert.

– Lord Wetherby: My station’s coming up, Sir. Would you care to step off with me and join me for tea at Greystone?

– Sir Rupert, With pleasure, Sir.

The train stops. They step onto the empty, foggy platform. They make their way toward the Greystone estate.

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🎭 Scene II
Setting: Library, Greystone estate.
Time: Late evening.

Silence. The clock ticks. The fireplace plays its monotonous waltz of flames. They sit by the fire, drinking tea with milk. An hour passes without a word. Finally…

– Sir Rupert, Boring, Sir.

– Lord Wetherby, (after unreflective pondering) Oh yes. Boring, Sir.

Another fifteen minutes pass.

– Sir Rupert, But very boring, Sir.

– Lord Wetherby, (as if remembering something) Oh yes. Very boring, Sir. (with a slight sigh)
Sir Rupert… My wife is upstairs. If you wouldn’t mind, perhaps you could visit her. Just for the company.

– Sir Rupert, (bowing respectfully) But of course, Sir. With pleasure. Sir. (removes his jacket, adjusts his tie)
I’ve always been an enthusiast of gentlemanly conversation.

Sir Rupert disappears up the stairs. Lord Wetherby pours himself more tea. A long moment passes. Sir Rupert returns, sits, is silent, drinks his now cold tea, and finally says, holding the cup:

– Sir Rupert: Cold, Sir.

– Lord Wetherby: (slightly pensive, slightly indifferent) Oh yes. Cold, Sir.

– Sir Rupert: (after a few sips, convincingly) But very cold, Sir.

– Lord Wetherby: (a bit more moved) Of course, very cold, Sir. She’s been dead for three days.

Silence. Only the fire crackling, and the laughter of a dead era.

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The Last Days of Albion; a Fragment from the History Textbook, Year 2345

(From “History of Global Myths,” Human Heritage Archive, orbital station Iuvenis II, year 2345. Translation from Simultaneous Language to English, emotional reconstruction.)

They weren’t always funny. They weren’t always cynical. They weren’t always drunk in Krakow and dressed as a penis. There was a time when Albion meant something more. Not an empire. Not a colony. A promise.

Back then, children learned the language of Albion as if it were sacred. Because in it, or so they were told words were born that could stop a war. In it, one could love like Shakespeare and die like Churchill. In it was “maybe,” a word that opened doors, even if they led nowhere.

The year 2025 by the old calendar. The world kept turning out of sheer inertia. And Albion… resigned.

From the Union. From itself. From memory. It got off the train of globalization at the “Own Identity” station and began talking about sovereignty, as if it were a virtue, not just loneliness wrapped in a flag.

The last citizens of Albion… spoke the language of irony fluently. They laughed at themselves, but didn’t really touch anything anymore. They lived where the BBC was, where Dunkirk was remembered, where Shakespeare’s marble stood. Until even their own children stopped believing it was all true.

It wasn’t a catastrophe. There was no bomb, no march. There was a quiet letting go. As if someone had taken the heart out and replaced it with an Oxford accent recording. To this day, we don’t know whether Albion died or simply took offense.

But one thing is certain: When an empire built on distance as a form of love collapses, the world loses its most beautiful myth: that elegance is enough to not suffer.

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Historical note – Gabryjel, witness of the age, wrote of them thus:
“They were as beautiful as the memory of a first cup of tea. Like the feeling you could be both a gentleman and a bastard at once. And then they came to Krakow and started puking on my shoes.”

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