144 — A Great Man

I am a great man.

For every 10 people, there're 11 opinions. Protestants disagree with Catholics; Muslims and Jews choose existential exclusivity; communists condemn capitalists; Hatfields and McCoys feud to the death.

Everything changed with me. I'm the galvanizing spark smelting them together, purifying a unified destiny, extracting a truth they could all embrace--with a smile.

It wasn't easy. It takes a powerful epiphany to sidestep so many irreconcilable philosophies, so many generations of intuitive cross-hatred, so many divisions of faith, ethos, and socioeconomic strata.

I provided it.

Imagine, infidels dancing check-to-cheek with accusers; sinners' refusal to sin again; apostates evangelizing with apologists; the righteous obsequious to the forgiven. If that doesn't stake my claim to greatness, convince me otherwise! Please!

To unify the immiscible, you must instill in them a mandate superseding all differences. I led by example, not by all the words that have been written--to no avail. I acted, speaking volumes--heard, read, and understood in a thousand languages, a hundred religions, and billions of independent thinkers who turned their attentions to me and away from their own self-serving aspirations.

I am great because I made that happen. How?

I committed a crime so heinous, ungodly, revolting, disturbing, shocking, and ugly, that it not only got the attention of everyone, everywhere, all at once, but commanded it. Human instinct distanced themselves from what I did--and the type of person who could do it; they encountered a spirituality so far from where they they were that all came to the same place. One without me.

My crime was so instinctively heretical to everyone, everywhere, that I provided, finally, common ground. As horrible as it was unprecedented, no human on Earth had even considered such a crime. But I did.

And did it. Everyone's getting along, but not with me. Thank me: the world's a beautiful place.

Now I'm in the Cruel-and-Unusual-Punishment Wing of Death Row, the first to make legislating that necessary. They're going to kill me and make me suffer. As an example. So it never happens again.

But it will. I didn't finalize the horrible and heinous. I just raised and lowered the bar at the same time--for the others who will follow.

_____________

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

"Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei" — ancient proverb. ("My friend, the enemy of my enemy," or, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend.")

For Thursday, May 23, Day 144 of the Story-a-Day Challenge.

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Title picture was AI-generated, but the greatness was s'not!

---

There are currently three surviving Vocal writers still participating in the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming

• Gerard DiLeo (some other guy)

PLEASE SUPPORT THEM BY READING THEIR DAILY SUBMISSIONS