The 8th Day

The military parade was supposed to be just one day, and it was supposed to last only a matter of hours. The Supreme Leader had barely slept despite the urging of his staff. How he had managed to continue on at his age, pacing up and down, pumping his fists, not a coffee or pharmaceutical stimulant in sight, was a kind of mystery to his staff. One of them had served multiple tours in Afghanistan and had seen incredible stamina from male and female, old and young- but this was a manic rebellion against sleep.

Occasionally one of his more sycophantic aides (and that was really saying something) would bring him a jacket to stave off the morning chill, or an espresso to kick-start his clogged arteries and he would snort at the gesture.

“Ha! Sleep is for the weak. I dont need to warm myself. Real men dont need to warm themselves, that for the phlegmocrats.” They nodded and hurried away. He had seemed more energetic, wide-eyed than ever before, as if the cheering of the crowds and the vibrations of the tanks were a personal defibrillator.

“Sir, we need to talk about the situation in Pursia.”

“Pursia!” He barked, squinting directly into the morning sun as if daring it to blind him

“Well, sir,” the General paused. One wrong word and at best, he would be retired. Second best, he would have his named smeared. Most likely, he would spend time in jail. He worried about his family… constantly. General O’Malley was once a name that was breathed in conjunction with honor, heroism, or steadfastness. Sometimes they used the word swift. He liked that one; the ability to be thrown into the maelstrom and freeze as if it was silent, making a swift and best decision.

He had lost all this now. He still served the country he loved. He served for the people who took his orders, but as The Supreme Leader began to refer to him as “his general” in “his military”, he began to feel a disdain for his position, like a school boy unfortunately elected to be class head beneath a despotic headmistress.

He closed the bathroom door at night (when he was allowed to go home) and heaved into silent sobs while he looked at himself in the mirror, the eyes of the young man he was when he enlisted, still staring back at him.

“Grandpa, are you okay?” His youngest grandchild, his sentient “little mushroom,” would knock at the door after too much time had passed.

“Absolutely mushroom,” he called back, trying to regain the control of his voice. “I have such a hard time with all these damn buttons… I mean, dufus buttons.” The little one giggled and alighted at the idea of his grandpa using the word dufus.

“Well, it’s not Pursia we are so worried about, it´s Pleia.”

“Screw them… they can raze their shantytowns to the ground for all I care and then it will be easier to build my own riviera.”

“The optics of that would be very bad for you sir,” said Halderman.

“Excuse me?” The Supreme Leader turned around to look directly at his youngest aide, as if a tank zeroing in on its target.

“Well, what I mean sir… is that we want to focus on your power, during the shows here… in your country. We dont want to take away from that with images that are just disgusting when you are eating dinner right?”

“Right Halderman! See everyone?” There was only he and the general on the balcony. “This guy gets me. Its why I stole him away from UForginia.” He clasped a hand on Haldermans shoulder. It was uncomfortably close to his pulse. He still hadn’t fully learned to control it.

Halderman was a member of of the AIS- Academic Intelligence Service. As the FDI and MIA got tossed around and infiltrated by a rotating cast of Jackal News castmembers, a kind of secret service had risen within the university system that supported each other during their dismantling.

When Carmine University lost its funding, its brightest students, and nearly half of their staff, many of the others in the same league began to ameliorate their tone towards The Supreme Leader, sometimes to be self-serving, sometimes to protect the institutions existence, and sometimes to give their young people a place to still hope and dream, to be human, and thoughtful. But the humanities were accustomed to losing their funding, the cutbacks, the backlash against the “dreamers”, the “unemployable”; they had nothing to lose. This was what they were built for. They merged with the fine arts and found themselves a quietly formidable force.

Taking on the guise of their classmates at other universities that had come out in full support of the Supreme Leader as The Nations future. Business school carried on unscathed, though they did have to replace sustainability and ethics courses with a new intro course in Supremeology and the Rise of Greatness. The sciences were hurt. Losing their students from other nations, they relied on their own, but their own had suffered greatly during the educational restructuring by the Educational Czar and former Circus Ringleader. They often found themselves without breakthroughs and instead debating evolution or the validity of female medicine as if they had regressed forty years.

Certainly, AIS were not fit, nor particularly stealthy, but they had knowledge of humanity and its nature on their side. It was an invaluable asset.

“And to that end sir, Prusia has taken notice of your lack of support for Pleaie and has returned its aggressions on the Emprenians.”

“Jesus!” *Ha! Jesus*. He laughed to himself. If only *that* guy knew what he went through everyday. “Well, they should have defended themselves better in the first place. I can’t be putting out everyone’s fire everywhere.”

“Thats it though sir,” the General chimed in, still perplexed by Haldermans audacity. It had to be his youth. “There *were* little fires everywhere and now they are combining into larger ones. Im afraid our resources should probably leave the streets of BC and focus on strategic stability.” He paused and took a note from Haldermans eyes, strange kid. “Show our might on the global stage extends beyond *your* Nation.” There, he said it, *your.* Bile rose in his throat- and he once worked on a dark site.

“Im sick of this shit!” He said waving a hand at an invisible crowd. His numbers had increased at the gates, and the fervor was whipped, but it was sucking their energy and they came later each day, and stayed later each night, flopping, swaying, glazed eyed as if if zombies with signs and hats. A joke about them having a zombie infection had gained some traction as a conspiracy theory online, and that schmeftist protestors had to stay clear of their path or they may become infected. There were groups of the passioned for causes, for freedom, for equality, and those holding the middle ground that were less afraid, but even they knew an angry mob was a match in a gas station.

The Supreme Leader looked out and saw a little boy standing alone in front the of gates with a red hat and a big placard, “If You Don’t Believe Supreme, No One Will Hear You Scream.” When he noticed the Supreme Leader, he stood as if at attention and held it higher. He saluted the child, who stood unmoved. “I like this one,” he said, and the General was unsure if he meant the boy or the sign.

“Look at this kid, he’s got it all figured out… See? He’s not afraid, he knows how good I am at this. Im the best one to have this job since Smashington, maybe better than Smashington… Its true, well never know. You know who really smashed it? I did. Smashed it right out of the park.” He pounded his fist on the concrete bannister. “Let’s show them some might then.”

The General looked at Halderman. Halderman and his family were his last connection to the non-military, non-political world.

“What kind of might sir?”

The Supreme Leader wasn’t listening.

“Who would you miss more, the Pleians, the Pursians, or the Prusians?”

“Miss, sir?”

“Well, we have to show our might, well probably have to decimate someone to stop them… then we want to think about where we want to take over. Honestly, I’d much rather have Pleaia, great beaches… beautiful big beaches, super hot girls. Although, they have them in Prusia too, great architecture. Amazing architecture… they’ve got those big domes, have you seen them? You oughtta see them, what are they called? Artichoke domes?”

“Sir,” Halderman interrupted, the reverie was spiralling as if there were discs in the Supreme Leaders eyes. “You dont really want to risk retaliation with any of the three.” He used his softest voice, no male aggression. He hoped his peacemaking aspirations hadn’t betrayed his cover, but his grandparents still lived in Pleia.

“Right, lets pick who has the lamest land… Pursia, nothing but sand.” He elbowed the general, who didn’t move an inch. “I want a fleet of five of your biggest planes… big planes you know what I mean? None of this stealth shit. I want them to see it coming, like a giant dog taking a turd all over their bases.”

“Sir, this would be unprecedented…” The Supreme Leader silenced the General and put a firm hand on this shoulder. He was sure he was trying to Darth Vader him.

“I know you know how to do this General OMalley, you’re my number one guy.” He turned quickly on his heel to stomp towards his quarters, past Stefanias (where she slept off another night of sedatives and weight loss supplements. It was destroying her to try to eat alongside him but still maintain the physique that he wouldn’t label disgusting). He headed toward his gold toilet and bidet, the only call he answered with respect.

The general stared out at the little boy, still unmoved. He thought of mushroom. Halderman rose and stood beside him. When he looked at the generals eyes, they were holding in oceans of water.

Day 9

The press had gathered in the Oblong Office. They whispered quietly amongst themselves. They had doubled in size since he had taken office. Even those who despised him were not afraid. The Supreme Leader loved the fight, he loved to take them down, come up with not-so-clever nicknames and puns that his followers would carry-on for him. Most of all, he just loved hearing his name.

Halderman paced in the hallway, afraid of why they were using the Oblong Office. Hopefully it was because the Press Secretary had been fired two days ago for saying the Country Fried Chicken wasn’t something she generally served her family to a mum she hadn’t known was a momfluencer. He prayed silently and chastised himself for being selfish to the cause- humanity. *Please God dont let it be Pelaians, not even the ones of the occupied banks.

The Supreme Leader walked in and fist pumped at the ground, some of whom cheered. Journalistic integrity was slipping out the window (or leaping off the balcony) as quickly as it could. The General followed closely behind.

“Good morning everyone, everyone looks good… Maryanne, I see you back there… new haircut, always keeping it up…. So, lets get this going. I know we didn’t hear a Heil to the Chief this morning, but I just love disco, Nacho Man is so much more appropriate. Sit down, sit down, please, please, are your chairs good? Things are good here, the economy’s going better than ever before, well get you guys some new chairs.”

Everyone sat down like school children unsure what they had to sell to earn the class pizza party.

“I have big news, now there will be lots of questions… lots of questions, I know…. Some of you will understand, some wont but were very excited about this. Tonight Pursia has the opportunity to surround its entire military program or face the full force and I mean HUGE, HUGE FORCE… of the The Nations military.”

The room broke out of whispers and turned into shouting, some rose to their feet.

“Before things get crazy in here…Thats why I brought my general with me, great guy General OMalley, big hero, not as big as me, but big… Anyways, this is also for the Nations people… this is no B-Span production, it is an address, even the sports channels can’t get around it… turn off the sports, Ill get you back to it in a minute…”

Some of them looked down at their phones to check their Z account. The Supreme Leader account had broken the 20 character barrier and the entire spectacle was being transcribed.

“I see your hands. I know your questions…. How many…. How long… How many American lives… what are our conversations with Pursia… Look, I like the Pursians, nice people, they hate us, I dont know why, but they can be nice sometimes, I’ve met some in Paris, but they know what they are doing with Pleia is wrong.”

Hands jumped up and more were out of their seats. A small, perplexed looking man towards the back had a look that Halderman knew. Someone not out to have the most immediate story, someone who had a deeply held stone of human conscience in their heart, and was lost for words. He handed slipped a folded note into the mans collar when he clasped a hand on his neck and leaned forward with a chastising smile,

“So you are going to get the big story staying seated huh? Well, you stayed seated then,” he whispered gently, “stay seated.”

As the general was about to take the podium, Halderman walked forward and whispered into the Supreme Leaders ear, “the reporter in the back isn’t standing sir.”

“Hey, hey, the rest of you quiet down… this guy in the back isn’t standing, lets see why he isn’t so excited…You, glasses, whats your name?”

The man pointed at himself with his pen as if questioning his ability to respond.

“Yeah you, who are you from?”

He gingerly stood, sweat gathering under his arms and above his brow, fogging his glasses. He removed them and wiped them on my shirt.

“See he’s nervous already. Im making him nervous. Thats okay, that’s okay, he’s new, lets be nice to glasses.”

“Im Wilt Whatman, for the Forge City Independent.”

“Never heard of it. Have we been to Forge City? I hear they love me there. Great people. We should go there. Okay, whats your question glasses.”

Halderman took a deep breath.

“And what of the Pleians sir… all of them? There is bound to be violence against them in advance or after this action.”

The Supreme Leader stared what he referred to himself as the eagle-stare.

“What about them. The survivors can have whats left of Pursia, then they can finally stop fighting. General OMalley will fill you in on the details. No more questions.”

Halderman stepped in to field the transition. The Supreme Leader put his hand on the shoulder of the general with a tighter grip. “Do me proud general.”

12 hours later in Bronzehattan

Penelope Stamps sat in a trendy hotel lounge fiddling with an ink pen until it stains muddled with the water rings on the soggy napkin before her. She was talented, but insecure as a writer. That slight malleability landed her the job as a writer for the Kenneth Centers publications interviewing playwrights and musicians who were on the seasons schedule. She didn’t know Halderman, but graduated amongst the same network of spies that she hadn’t known existed.

She was meeting the notoriously introverted Peter Stankov, a playwright of the most recently anticipated play at the center. While the play had subtle undertones of Brokeback Mountain; two young men situated into marriages they dont want to be in. They were both very non-cowboy, non-rural men, and it was complicated enough to read as a domestic tale and nothing to offend macho sensibilities. Besides Peter was known to be a rapt (and adapt) lover of women, particularly those who offered any sense of maternal comfort. He was an off-Broadway mix of bad boy and good boy as one.

She knew him immediately when he walked in-the sweaty forehead, the downward gaze, the floppy curls. He gave her the “underlook” that so many poets (and one particular princess) had mastered in becoming vulnerable and captivating simultaneously. She couldn’t lie to herself that it didn’t pull a string from her lower abdomen to her heart as well, like the pluck of a cellos bow, low, slow, vibrating.

She started to rise. He raised a gentle half-hand.

“No, please dont,” he sat next to her on the banquette. He leaned incredibly close.

“You look like you ran here,” she smiled attempting to disarm him. It hadn’t worked. A lithe, naturally tan man walked into and slinked over to the bar, cast a knowing gaze in his direction. It was almost a nod to her. “Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

“You tell me.”

She poured him some water.

“A lot of people are on edge right now.” He poured the water down his throat and she refilled it. Deep chocolate brown eyes, the kind that melted into the pupil. That was her weakness, and she could read them like tarot cards. “Lets talk about your play.”

“I dont want to talk about my play…” he reeled backwards. “Ok, well talk about my play. Firstly, I want to talk about the inspiration for my play… have your read any of Mushikamis recent dramas amount the Inuiz diaspora.” She hated when this happened. She *knew* academic language, but the references of other artists, and then references to artists from referenced by that artist seemed to be a change of didactic terminology and references that at best, simply alienated the now moderately educated audience, and at worst, distanced the humanity of the work from humanity.

“Ok, well…. I do know of Mushikama…” She was great at knowing a little about a lot.

Thunder boomed. Everyone stopped. It was a clear evening. It was a sonic boom. Peter knew the sound and closed his eyes.

“Wait for it…” he grew up in Verdeland during the 90s, when the Nations military used their homeland as a petrol station. A screech and thunderous roar rumbled overhead and he put his head on the table as she walked outside of the lounge with the other patrons.

More booms, more thunder, and you could practically see the underbellys of the jets with their sad but dutiful pilots leaving the Nation. The Supreme Leader had ordered them to fly low enough that the People could see them on their way. No one fought, cheered, or cowered. They were stunned to witness it in their lifetime.

When Penelope came back in she was heaving at sobs. She wanted to scream out, “No! No! No! No!No! No! This is not what the universe was meant for!” But she was interrupted. The least sexually active generation had suddenly dropped their phones and were all making out. She swore some were having sex. It wasn’t Babylon. It was if everyone was lost behind their own curtains within the only thing that made sense.

She walked up to Peter with a confidence and vulnerability, as if she had known him for years. He saw her tears, and his mouth dove upon hers as if he could suck them dry, and she let him. He led her to the stairwell while his tongue filled her mouth, and they cried and fucked in the corner, while the thin man stayed quietly at the bar twirling his straw in a soda water and the bartender still polished glass as if it would hold the fragility of his nerves along their rims.

Day 10

Things were sadder, more drained, literally and metaphorically in the light of the dawn. The sound of the jets were gone but the images of green lit spaces and firework like missiles filled the tv screens. Some people had left the lounge. A few people had checked out of the hotel and returned to wherever they were from by train. All air travel had been halted, all borders had been sealed.

There were no arguments of what was right or wrong. It was too late… and everyone knew it. They had the same bewildered stares as the Pursians and Pleians on the newschannels; so did the newscasters, except from Jackal News, who seemed to be hopped up on amphetamines. There were two large distinctions, the news channels showed people bewildered about what happened and feared what they had lost. In the hotel, the guests sat bewildered about what would happen, and feared what they would lose.

Penelope quietly rose and stood in front of the bathroom mirror after washing her face. The only traces of remaining make up where the salt flats of tears mixed with washed out mascara on her face. Water was good. Water was real. Water was still here. Maybe this was all fake.

She turned and looked at a woman she had seen writhing against her girlfriend on a barstool as she exited the bathroom stall. She was so confused, she had forgotten to turn off the tap water. Pull yourself together Penelope, she whispered. There had been wars for centuries she argued. Her inner Athena said, *but they were without this ability for destruction.* She steeled herself against a desire to sob again. I think they’ve forgotten about mutually assured destruction. Maybe the men and women with buttons all had billionaire bunkers and could play the new gods. She shuddered and felt like curling up in a ball. She remembered fucking Peter. She sat on the bathroom floor and placed her hand on her abdomen where part of him still swum within her head back against the cool tile. Fuck it. Its okay. she told herself in her steadfast voice. Then more gently, as long as there is creation, there is life.

When she had nearly fallen asleep in her corner, she adjusted her shirt, pulled up her hair, and walked out to upright Peter. But first, she walked to the thin man at the bar.

“You,” she said pouring herself a glass of soda water and clinking it against his glass. “You’ve watched us all night you might as well come with us.”

6 Hours Later

The general hadn’t slept all night. He arrived home at six hours before to check in with his wife, his daughter, and her family while they all awaited him at their house in Mariland. Laura was accustomed to worrying about the general. Though it was nothing like his days on the frontlines, his locations, his proximities to dangers physical. Now more elusive threats, preyed on her general sense of ease.

“Daddy,” his daughter exclaimed running to him on tiptoes.

“Shhh, youll wake the mushroom,” he said with a gentle smile. “How is he? He’s such a sensitive kid.”

“He’s not too sensitive dad,” she stepped back putting a hand on her fathers face the way she hoped her mother did. “He’s the most human of humans. He sees what we all see, but he feels what *everyone* feels.”

Her father looked down and almost turned into her hand. He held in a heave and coughed.

“I need to talk to your mother… do you know where she is?”

“I have no idea, we haven’t seen her all night.”

“Okay, Ill make some coffee, I’ve got to get my shower, and then Ill come set with you for a bit.”

Laura was feeding the birds back near her favourite tree. It was where she had buried all of her beloved pets. She sensed him, and hated when he snuck up on her. It felt predatory. She turned quickly.

“The birds are behaving strangely… actually all of the animals are.” He planted a kiss on her forehead and tried not to give in to staying too long.

“Sonic booms are unnatural,” he said with a sigh.

“Everything will be fine right? He’s not stupid. He doesn’t want to lose all of his golf courses and gold palaces surely, and he has kids…”

He floated back to 6 hours ago.

“Thats what we need to talk about.”

6 Hours ago

Images splashed across the tv screens. It was no longer the fireworks and wailing, it was smoke bombs, frantic horses, broken glass, and tv camera equipment. Across the Nation, with the covert organization of the AIS people gathered for peace rallies in public squares with candlelight and a quiet wordless hum, a vibration of the heart that spoke of nothing but the connecting of sound reverberating through the whole.

There was nothing to fight or shout at. The peacekeepers stood by at the ready, checking their phones for what was happening at home, and crossing their fingers or themselves that they wouldn’t be needed that evening. The Supreme Leaders followers just watched, as if hypnotized by the quiet hum of the peace leaders. They began to feel weary of wearing the anger and stoking the flames for the Supreme Leader. The quiet empathy of the vigil slackened their limbs and they began to question how much their leader really cared for them. So many of them had already lost so much, and it didn’t seem anything got better for anyone but him. And that led to resentment, and then grief.

Halderman walked amongst them all evening, handing out warm coffee to both sides, taking the temperature of the streets, but also grounding himself from the madness within the Gold House. He prayed to himself, that as the zombies awoke from their sickness, their anger would turn at the leader, not the vigil keepers.

The sign carrying little boy had stood guard at the gates with his sign for so long he had forgotten to use the toilet. He propped his sign against his sleeping grandfather and ran to find a port-a-loo. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t notice that he had kicked over a vigil candle of a sleeping vigilant. While he emptied his bladder, the fire ate the paper cup, then leaflets on the ground, and finally, the scarf of a woman sitting near the loo.

As he opened the door, his eyes were shocked by the bright fire in the darkness.

“Fire!” He called out. His voice had never seemed so small when his signs had always seemed so loud. “Hey fire! There a fire!” He leapt into the porta-loo and tried to splash water at her and she stood up and screamed. The officer on horseback only saw a woman on fire and a desperate child. He fired rubber bullets at both of them, the sonic boom sounded, the jets roared, and the fire didn’t stop.

It carried on in Shytown, Teras, The Angels, even in the island Puerto Bello, both sides had descended into a chaos, the sides no longer fighting with each other, no longer fighting with the civil servants with their gasses or rubber bullets. They converged in a collective primal scream, “End Tyranny Now!” They turned their anger at the military which still was being ordered to keep the peace against its own citizens will otherwise busy showing full force to the world.

The general paced inside the situation room while the President opened another soda. He was starting to smell like bacon grease after so many hours in the room.

“It’s not that big of a deal. Well show them FULL FORCE… remember those crazy hippies in the sixties… its probably still the same dirty fuckers out there.”

“Sir, this is not the sixties, there is no frightist versus schmeftist anymore… and forget about civil servants, the last thing you have right now is the national guard.”

“It’s those dirty immigrants isn’t it? Always looting, stealing, trying to get a quick buck?”

“Goddamn it, It´s not!” Yelled the general, surprised at his own loss of control. “It´s everyone, look at the screen. No one has seen anything like this before because there is no footage of the French Revolution.” He paused to drink some water and assessed the room of those around him. Some clung to the Supreme Leader, some looked at the table nervously as if considering running for their lives. “What you have here is combined, volatile, civil unrest… people angry at servitude, people angry at tyranny, people angry at their humiliations, their poverties, their place in society, whichever place that is… they are angry at you. You made a clear, reckless decision that endangers us all, without even thinking twice about the people you lead. Your selfish narcissism, your towering ego is what brings us all here today… the only thing between you and them is the National Guard, and how long do you think they will hold when they are fighting their neighbours, their teachers, their priests, their baristas, their gardeners, their mothers, their sons, their daughters, their dog walkers, their contractors, their grocers… they wont. Forget your tech and filthy rich bros, they’re already gone… in their bunkers, on their yachts, their secret islands. Military history says that the guard wont hold against the people because they motherfucking *are the people, your people as you call them*. You will descend into martial law…”

“Thats it then, bring in the full force… martial law… bigger than martial law… Take all of our resources from the parade. I want tanks crawling up their asses. Jets landing in Timpani Square. They will see who their leader his, and the world will bow.”

Something went off in his heart, as if a bullet pierced some tightly held sinew.

“Do you understand general?” He said with the “eagle stare.”

“I do sir. Im going to go home to check in on my family, and I will be back on the hour.” The Supreme Leader had already descended into his MgMuffin.

Before he left he squeezed Haldermans shoulder, “At is, what At IS right kid?”

“At?” He said staring at the general.

“UForginia man right? I went there myself. It will be okay,” he almost winked.

Evening

“We have to carry on as usual okay… you know, keep calm and carry on right?” Penelope said pushing tea in Peters direction.

“I just can’t right now,” he mumbled to himself, tousling his own curls, and repeating phrases from various Times Best Sellers.

“You can, you have to.” She knelt down so that she could look up into his eyes. “Art is the last defense against barbarity.” Her cage had been clipped free within the course of an evening. What others thought about her didn’t hinder her anymore. She wondered silently if that’s what it always felt like being a man. What silent burden do they carry?

“Tell me about the play… some of the undertones, what does it say about the silent burdens of men?” He got inspired and focused for a moment, sitting back in his chair.

“The role is about being a refugee in your own home.”

“How so?”

“Im a man, I find my agent here,” he nodded at the quiet man who had now accompanied them, with his curiously green and gold eyes always watching. “…attractive. I dont pursue him because I am not gay. I have nothing against being gay, Im just aware of the nature of my own attractions.” He paused to sip his tea and read the room. He took another deep breath. “I slept with you last night… because I wanted to. I care about that connection of humanity in that moment when it felt like the only string in a labryinth. That does not mean I am adapted to some gentility that means we will discuss it ever again, nor that I am a beast who brushes his teeth and forgets the sound of your breath.”

Penelope and the agent both flinched a bit at his words.

“The play is about tenderness… what is it, who gets to own it, when do others find it acceptable, and how… why do these themes have to be delineated…” He grew more passionate and his breath was coming from both his mouth and his nostrils.

“And how do you think now… during what is presumably wartime… people will respond to a drama about male tenderness…”

“War is about tenderness!” He shouted. “Our ability to have empathy and affection for another, to receive it from another is our connection, our safety net, to keep us evolving in civility instead of commodifying, othering, commanding, labeling, denying each other… being depriving of each other.” He softened and gave them both the underlook, and whispered towards her, but also a little bit to his agent, “And Im sorry, of course *that did matter, and probably not in the way you might think, because you are not someone linear either.”

The room felt stilled, a serene wave rolled in and lifted the three of them. They all paused and Penelope remembered she had taken no notes. She reached for the phone from her bag,

“Do you mind if I record this?” She asked awhile the agent jumped across the room.

“No, dont!” But his was interrupted by a deafening roar that whipped the tree leaves of the riverbank outside. A large helipcopter landed as if a butterfly descending on a leaf. But when the hatch opened, there was a flurry of humans that looked as if ants filing out to each side, and then parted way for what seemed a slug. There was no mistaking the supreme leader, he had recently turned his hair to gold.

10 Minutes Later

The general stood beside the Supreme Leader. He had said goodbye to his family and assured them that everything would be fine. He lead his wife to bunker that he had built eight years ago with what should’ve been their retirement money. He worried for her and his daughter, but most of all, he was happy that mushroom would be safe. The world would be right again. Humans can be so brave, so bright in even the darkest times.

The General held a secret meeting in the Octagon before returning to the Gold House. He handed papers to be burned after reading through a swift and effective chain meant for the event of a cyber attack. Everyone was to be out of the building and at home by 20:15. He had orders to follow at 20:15, if directed by the Supreme Leader, so he would return home presumably, after that.

“Now I dont want to be here.” he called out to the crowd now held back by Marines. “Im sure all of you would rather be at home watching this on the news. Am I right? Wouldn’t you? And instead you are here with these guys, our big beautiful military.”

The men stood stone-faced. The crowd breathed tensely. The little boy stood in front of his grandpa who had made the trip to Timpani Square where the biggest protests had been held. The crowd was as mixed as ever- in every possible way.

“Now we can do this really easily, or really hardly,” he said with the mixture of an abusive parents menace and a Bond villains smile on his face. “We will not let these big beautiful cities get burned to the ground. We will not sacrifice the men and women of our military to attack the citizens they swore to protect. We wont…” he shrugged, “they dont want to… I dont want to.”

Above Penelope, Peter, and Asim watched from above. They heard the speech echoing down below and clearly through their phone that had been corrupted into an emergency message. Asim shrank to the ground and began trembling in a ball.

“Get me some water please,” Peter said to Penelope. Her eyes were wide at Asims face. She came back quickly and whispered,

“What’s wrong with him?” Peter look at her shook his head, putting his friends head on his lap.

“It’s okay, Asim… he can’t touch you now.” He knelt his forehead to his friend. “Thats not him. He was just a small man in a big body, and this is just a small man in a big body.” He bent down and gently kissed his mouth.

Asim started shaking and Peter placed his hand on his heart.

“Small men destroy worlds,” Asim whispered as if in a dream. The roomed reverberated with fear. Peter grabbed hold of Penelopes hand with the one that was free, and kissed her hard.

The square was slithering with fear. It was as if the sewers had been infested with serpents ready, hungry even, to strike.

Now even the world watched, not afraid of the Nation, but *for* the Nation. They were people too, no matter how much the Supreme Leader blustered over and svengalied them.

“We are going to do this in a big, easy… Big Easy,” he laughed and looked for other laughter in the silent faces. “No one gets it, just me I guess, that’s ok… This is a BIG, EASY, WAY…. This Square, huge square has had the most protesters, the noisiest protestors, not the most violent maybe, but the noisiest and we are going to make it safe to go out again.”

He gestured at a platform set up by the morning news broadcasts for their summertime concerts. It had been taken over by a silent group of Buddhist monks.

“It is 20:00 at the moment. It’s a good time to go home. I dont want to hear any more fighting, any more protests, any more chants… in fact, I want these guys in their scarves off the podium here. What is that about? I dont know. Thats the easy way, and this is the hard one…General?”

The general tapped on a screen on his tablet and the billboards all lit up with a map of the Nation. The geopgraphic point of the square flashing red.

“I have a single ballistic missile aimed, well, at this podium acatually,” he gestured over, “sorry guys, you’ll have to sit somewhere else… If this area is not clear, if people are still chanting, even sitting, I will level this square. And I dont wanna do that. Don’t make me do that? This a great square. I want it clear by 20:15 or I hit the red button. And for every other city taking notice, I will start listing their curfew time by the half hour or we will continue until as a Nation we realize Im here for you. God is behind me, I mean, US, God is behind US on this one.”

Whispers ran through the crowds as more cities lit up on the board.

“It’s time to start going home people…goodnight,” he waved, still looking for a cheer from the crowd. He half waved them off mumbling, ingrates, to himself. “Come on general.”

“Yes, Sir” he saluted. Halderman looked like he was going to pass out. “It’s okay kid, I got this. Why dont you hold onto this for me for just a bit, for good luck.” Handed him is Forginian class ring and noticed a saying inscribed, “it is As It iS.” He blinked away his own dumbfoundedness. The AIS wasn’t so new.

Laura watched from home while mushroom watched Teletubbies. A young man that she had known as the Supreme Leaders aide hadn’t left with the scrambling crowds. She held onto the St. Christopher medallion around her neck. The Halderman kid was trying to drag the the monks off the platform until people began to carry them. Pamphlets and rubbish blew around the street as it emptied beneath the fumes from the recently gifted new helipcopter.

“Thats something isn’t it General?” The general stared at the window as the people fleed. He heard Halderman in his earpiece. “everyone is fleeing the other cities as well.”

“Now that’s power isn’t it General? Look at them scurry. Some of them were my followers you know? Garbage. Just garbage people.”

8:14

All eyes were glued to the screens of the vacant squares. They zoomed into Timpani Square holding a collective desire for relief… and then a light flashed, the moons reflection for a moment as the door from the morning news show opened.

A floppy hair young man squinted at the squares bright lights. He looked down, breathed in slowly going up the steps. Someone small scurried up beside him.

“What? It can’t be?” He stopped chain-swallowing his soda and saw the little boy in the red hat put down his sign and pick up one with the floppy haired young man. “And who’s that jerk? Ive seen that guy.”

“I believe it’s Peter Stankov, he’s doing a play at your center this season… well presumably was supposed to…”

The two youths raised their signs to any cameras, any satellites that could see them. Penelope cradled Asim above, and held the phone so he could see it.

Painted in bright red letters,

“Small Men Bring Down Big Worlds…¨in the playwrights, and “Tenderness is our protection” in the little boys. They stood hand in hand, hearts pounding while the monitor clock ran down.

Peter closed his eyes and squeezed the little boys hand.

5…. 4…. 3… 2… 1…

The Supreme Leader laughed. “Press the button, General.”

8:15

The boys opened their eyes surprised to be alive. The little one burst into tears onto the playwright. Halderman stood in awe and offered them both a hand down.

“Hey guys, let’s get you some water okay? It’s been a long…. Well… night…”

The Supreme Leader pounded his fist on the table.

“Where’s the explosion? There’s supposed to be an explosion! We fired the missile! Where is the missile?!” His face was swallowed with red.

“Sir, I have the chief of staff at the Octagon and the Attorney General are on the line,” said a Sergeant nearby.

“Not now Todd! I’ll call him later!”

“He’s calling from home sir…” The sergeant rose as the plane changed directions from the Supreme Leaders island retreat, placing a pair of handcuffs and their key on the table in front of the General.

“Where’ the fuck are we going? Im gonna miss the news now! I want to get home.”

“Sir, I think you need to take the call,” said the General as he rose from his seat and looked out to the horizon.