The event was a perilous culmination of chaos and chance, besieged on all sides by various catastrophes and stalked by a malevolent shadow of dread… but it never quite caught us. Somehow, we pulled the thing off, despite the forces of Man and Nature levied against our cause. Defying all odds, its organizers, guests, and audience deemed it a resounding success which lasted deep into the balmy evening. It managed to spawn a lifeforce of its own to pull it through the tempest, a serendipitous core of unabashed humility and genuine love that could only be the work of The Old Man.
He was one of many who rose from the mists of the fallen Empire to grab the weathered reigns of his bastard society and pull it out of the cradle, hurling it spitting and screaming into the Wilsonian gathering of modern nations. He’s a product of that strange quirk of humanity that drives races to mingle in even the most hostile circumstances, where slaves and servants, overseers and oligarchs, combine in some twisted social Stockholm Syndrome that breeds as much festering resentment as it does national pride and social unity. His family tree is more like a rainforest, and only a select few academic institutions and government agencies possess the technology needed to sort out his bloodline, which is, by my opinion, nonlinear in nature.
Long ago, our hero realized that education, hard work, and Byzantine rural politics could elevate him to a greater order. Armed with ruthless determination and haunted by the specters of his broken parents, who worked like dogs for men who were little better than dogs themselves, the Young Man built his business and assumed a position of political leadership in his fiefdom. Now came the favors, the requests, the deals and the unspoken obligations, the vast web of friendly words and vicious emotions that dribble down into the red soil, culminating in the magnificent cesspool of local politics.
Unlike many of his peers, who went on to seek higher offices to plunder, he returned to his family. Taking a mid-level government job, he started church youth groups and a town council. Now almost into his seventh decade, he dreams of change. Latching on to the modern concepts of sustainability and environmentalism, he draws parallels with the frugality and responsible industry of his parents. The fierce criticism he so lovingly cultivates for the government is only offset by an almost ecstatic hatred of laziness, an evil he never tires of pointing out in all its insidious manifestations.
His energy is legendary, as each of his 17 children, and his wife, can attest. I feel ashamed when he praises my work ethic, which often falls victim to his slothful arch-nemesis. Still, just being around the guy makes you feel happy and alive. His personality is composed of so much condensed righteousness that it boasts its own gravitational pull, and I was sucked into its orbit during a particularly dark time in my travels. I’ve committed my sword to his crusade.
So, after the myriad fuck-ups, the lapses in judgment, and the many failures of planning; after the worried looks and exasperated murmurs of his lieutenants, after every twist that fate could summon, and after Poseidon’s magnificent downpour left most everything wet and miserable, the Old Man stood at the podium beaming, gazed over the shifting crowd, and thanked his god for such a wonderful day.
