A single man controls the entire world. No decision is made without his say. The thing is, he doesn’t know he’s the ruler. All he knows is these men in suits come to his house every Saturday and ask him strange questions.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen. Come on in!” Jasper Johnson said with a wide smile as he waved the six suited men into his small Bonita Springs condo.
The condo overlooked the gulf. Jasper and his wife had retired here. She passed away right after his eighty-third birthday. Now, at ninety, he lived alone. His children and grandchildren rarely visited—busy with their modern lives on the West Coast, among all the “hippies,” as Jasper liked to call them. The walls here remained frozen in time, and he’d never replaced the floral furniture his wife picked out. That damned plastic he hated still covered the couch, but he couldn’t bring himself to remove it. Old dog, new tricks and all.
“Take a seat,” Jasper said, gesturing as he rolled his wheelchair opposite the coffee table. The men took their usual seats, four crammed shoulder to shoulder on the plastic-wrapped couch, two more perched on folding chairs. They always arrived at noon, like clockwork, ever since they first showed up a year after his wife’s passing. Said they were doing some government survey. Jasper thought they dressed like proper gentlemen—suits and ties, the way men ought to dress. Not like these kids in denim and flip-flops who flooded the beaches.
“So,” Jasper said, clasping his liver-spotted hands together. “How’s life, boys?”
John, the man in the middle, always spoke. The others never introduced themselves, some tapping pens quietly against notepads, another adjusting his tie, each maintaining a careful, attentive silence.
“Did I ever tell you boys about Korea?” Jasper asked, grinning.
“Yes, sir,” John said with a respectful incline of his head. “We admire your heroism. A genuine patriot, right boys?”
“Balls of steel,” said one, tilting his head in what might have been admiration.
“Don’t make ’em like you anymore,” added another, crossing his legs and leaning forward as if studying Jasper more closely.
Jasper slapped his knee. “No, they don’t! These kids today with their phones, girls doing this twerk thing—asses up and down the beach! No respect! Pah!”
The men nodded politely. Jasper enjoyed their company. Nobody respects their elders anymore, except these fellas. He looked forward to their visits, the highlight of his week. He glanced at a framed photo on the side table—his wife, hair pinned back, smiling in the sunlight—and felt the ache of all the empty afternoons. Outside, midday light danced on the gulf’s gentle swells, and distant seagulls cried softly in the salt-tinged air.
The Wyrd Interlude:
In a quiet corner of the world, where old souls and faded memories gather dust, illusions coil in silence. Here, a single whisper can bend the fate of nations, and an unsuspecting mind shapes empires with casual opinions. We trust our grand narratives—progress, power, policy—yet beneath them lurk gentle horrors and unseen hands. This—is wyrd fiction.
“Jasper, we want to speak with you about something very important today,” John said.
“Of course, of course,” Jasper replied eagerly.
“Yes, well, ever since Donald Trump was elected last November—”
“Ah! Didn’t I tell you he’d win?” Jasper beamed. “Need a man with balls and business savvy. Not a crooked woman, for crying out loud.”
“Right,” John said, a hint of tension in his smile. “Well, there’s been a large group of people protesting. What are your thoughts?”
“They’re soft, I tell you,” Jasper said, wheeling closer. “Never worked a real job in their lives. Don’t get me wrong, I fought and lost my right foot for this country—stepped on a damned landmine, I’ve told you that, right?—so I respect freedom. They can protest, sure, but they don’t know how good they’ve got it. Let these college-educated know-it-alls spend a month under some real tyranny. See if they still think they’ve got all the answers.”
One agent, pen hovering mid-word, stopped and lifted his gaze, brow furrowing slightly as if awaiting final authority.
“Is that something you’d like to see happen?” John asked carefully. “To actually send them overseas?”
Jasper rolled his head and made a tsk-tsk sound. “They deserve it—bunch of spoiled brats—but I’ll be damned before I see any American suffer under some foreign commies. No, they can stay and whine. It’s their right, I guess,” he huffed.
The agent with the notepad let out a controlled breath, tapped his pen twice against the paper, and drew a thick line through his last note.
“Agreed. Good point, Jasper,” John said. “How do you feel President Trump is doing?”
“Off to a rough start, but people need to give him a chance. They gave that black guy eight years, didn’t they? But they won’t give this white guy a shot! Racist,” Jasper muttered.
A pen scratched: TRUMP LIVES.
“Now, Jasper, we know you fought in Korea, so this might be a tough issue. Tensions are high with North Korea.”
Jasper barked a laugh. “That pudgy little fuck running that slave camp? I’d say nuke the gooks—” He paused, eyes distant for a moment. The men tensed, pens hovering. “But you can’t do that,” Jasper finally said. “Lots of innocent folks trapped there. Not their fault.”
The men relaxed, one agent flipping to a fresh page in his notepad, another easing his posture as if a heavy weight had lifted. Jasper rubbed his chin. We should’ve crossed that damned line back in ’53. Now? Put boots on the ground, reinforce the DMZ, send warships, lean on China and Japan. Launch a tactical strike with drones—take out their bases, supply lines, slip in the SEALs like with bin Laden. Put a bullet in that fat bastard’s eye and set up a new government. If they resist, send in the troops.”
The pen scribbled furiously. Another agent nodded, relieved that Jasper wasn’t calling for a global apocalypse, just a precise intervention.
“What if China doesn’t support it?” John pressed.
“They will,” Jasper nodded, certain. “Saw it on the TV. Trump and their President got along, shook hands. That’s good enough for me.”
John inhaled deeply. “Just one more issue today, Jasper. How do you feel about people’s digital privacy rights?”
“Digital privacy?” Jasper coughed, puzzled.
John clarified: “If someone searches for something online, should that be private?”
“Oh,” Jasper leaned forward. “I don’t use the internet, but if I did, I’d have nothing to hide. Kids these days look at porn, send nudes, film all sorts of nonsense. I saw a story on the news—a young girl, raped, and her friends posted it online. Animals.” He shook his head sadly. “If someone does something on that internet, Uncle Sam should know. Hell, libraries keep records of what books you take out! Why should the internet be any different? These kids become terrorists online—like those Boston boys. Someone’s gotta watch.”
John’s eyes narrowed slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching as if weighing Jasper’s every syllable.
“Well, Jasper.” John stood. “That’s all for this week.” The others stood too, drifting toward the door.
Jasper wheeled behind them, worried. “You’ll come next week, right?”
“Yes,” John said, hand on the door handle. He paused, looking back. “Jasper, did you have a birthday recently?”
“I did.” Jasper smiled, proud. “The big nine-oh.”
John nodded. “Happy Birthday.”
“That doesn’t put me out of age for this survey business, does it?” Jasper asked, a slight tremor in his voice betraying his nervousness. Their visits meant the world to him.
“Absolutely not,” John smiled. With a practiced hand, he slipped a silenced pistol from his jacket, its muzzle catching the condo’s quiet light. Jasper saw it, but before his lips could part, John shot once.
With a sharp turn, John shut the door. Inside the condo, Jasper’s wheelchair rolled back a few inches, the plastic-covered couch reflecting the still form of the old man who never knew he ruled the world.
In the hush that followed, the gulf’s distant waves offered the only eulogy, joined by the quiet cries of seagulls drifting through salt-tinged air.
The Wyrd Curtain:
When truth lies dormant on a borrowed throne, and grand designs hinge on a fragile heartbeat, the ultimate question remains: who truly steers our course? In the silence after violence, the world’s stage resets, indifferent to the players who never knew their part. Paths wind ever on, and we glimpse only fleeting shadows of what truly holds the reins—and Wyrd Worlds yet await.