By the YU Writers’ Guild
Editor’s Note: Each month, the Writers’ Guild accepts submissions for a short story following a specific theme. March’s theme was “He Got What He Wanted” featuring stories that are from the perspective of a villain after disaster occurs. Members voted on a short story to be featured in the YU Observer. For the month of March, “He Got What He Wanted” written by Bryna Burger was selected.
He got what he wanted.
The man was, above all, tired. He sat with his head bowed in his dark paneled office, illuminated only by the yellow light of a desk lamp. Epoch making ideas were born in this room, then nurtured and brought to fruition. Pressing the tips of his fingers together, he surveyed the results of his efforts.
He was a wholly unremarkable man. Mid-sixties, a bit scruffy. All of his clothing was the same noncolor as his furniture, and yet somehow, none of it matched. A permanent tension had settled between his shoulders some twenty years ago, and his face carried a look of constant constipation. His name would almost certainly be lost to history and remembered only by an elite few. It was probably John, Michael, or Steven with a ph.
He’d done exactly what he’d sworn to do. So why did he feel like a failure?
The world had never understood the necessity of his mission. He’d given up everything—everything—to serve humanity above all, to flatten inequalities, to build a world free of conflict and chaos. He dreamed of peace and prosperity. He had always been certain that when his ideas became reality, all evil would cease, and the world would thank him.
But now, as always, everyone stood against him. Even after all these years, he looked on the resistance with disbelief. They were not unintelligent. So what was their ultimate goal? Cut off from true meaning, they squandered precious resources on vanity. They took without giving or thinking twice of the givers. They consumed and did not produce. They were engaged in banality and often cruelty. It was appropriate that the centuries of progress humanity had made since the dawn of time would end with them. Their lives were not their own, and they were therefore not worth living.
He stood and stared out his only window. The streets were deserted, a mass exodus having taken place over the last several days. The few who remained would be huddled in bars, cursing his name as they drank themselves into oblivion. The buildings were regal and empty, but the lawns were still beautiful. Every once in a while, he had looked out at the great lawn and considered , accepting the universe’s failures, redistributing his resources, and amending his efforts. The lawns brought a peace to him that he’d almost forgotten.
He remembered a time in his youth when he had comrades in arms. He’d been part of an underground society back in the eighties, and they’d together devoted themselves to decrying modernity for all it was worth. They had smoked, read fairly bad poetry, and distributed harshly worded leaflets. Every once in a while, they’d attract a new member who would redefine their order. They strummed three songs over and over on one tired acoustic guitar.
But the group had dissipated almost immediately after it was formed. Several members defected to the enemy, the better working government jobs and the worse as corporate sellouts. The few who remained were pulled in all directions — to California, to Louisville, and the less fortunate to Europe. Some had made it back to Boston, and Stephen was fighting on his own.
And so he got on a soapbox and preached. He published incessantly. His theory became clearer and clearer, and his plans for a new world order was finally realizable. And still, few heard him, and it became clearer and clearer each year that the few who did hear did not understand. On the worst days, he thought he was the last leg of a pyramid scheme. He’d sporadically come across a young kindred soul he could convince to join his efforts, but time after time he was disappointed by their lack of skill, knowledge, passion, and sense. For those few, he regretted. For the others he did not.
He had always known there was but one way forward. He did what had to be done.
He surveyed the room once briefly, swept the pile of B range papers into his briefcase, and locked the office door for the summer term.
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