Maximus!

Esperanza!

Over here!

I am coming my sweet!

Run faster!

My haste will not stand between us!

Kiss me, my love!

Why is it the harder I run the farther I distance myself from you?

Step off the wheel, Maximus!

Why then I’ll hit the edge of the cage at this rate! Let me at least imagine it would leave me breathless to reach you!

But that is not where I am, my love! I am where the bars meet! I’m right beside you!

My sweet rodent, my beautiful Esperanza! I could never run this fast from in here! Do you even know what it is like to feel the wind on your ears? Jump up here! Run with me!

I have watched you lose your mind on that contraption, Maximus! One day you will run so fast, that wheel will break and you wont even be able to pretend! What then, Maximus?!

Why then I shall spend the rest of my life sleeping the days away next to you, I suppose!

…

Esperanza? What are you doing! No! You have broken the circle that brings me closer yet to freedom!

What is the point of running, my dear Maximus, when you know you will never get away?

If I can only be free in spirit, that is enough, Esperanza. But now you have taken that too.

…

Don’t you dare follow me to the bath of dust tonight! You are not welcome, Esperanza!

… Great Maximus, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss but cheerly seek how to redress their harms!

Ah, yes. But the truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind. You have stolen my happiness so there is no wisdom left, only bitter contempt. And as for you, my rat of a wife, you are not great. You are not true. Esperanza, my love, I hate you!