There comes a time when you realise, in all probability, you aren't going to get what you want. The treats accorded to others aren't goin to happen to you. You have been lied to by the books you read, by the music you listen to and the films you watch. All their pretty lives, where bodies fit togther, where inhibitions are jettisoned with the closing of the front door, where people relate to each other, all those normal reactions, all those domestic blisses, none of them apply. Sure, it is easy to figure out why. There is the history, which you can never be free of, there is the grinding repetition that brings you to me, here and now, there is the years of hope, of thinking today will be the day, that now will be that moment, that perfect moment, the moment of such import that you move to the third stage automatically.

You can look at your peers, for your friends have gone with the choices you have made, and you can see the way they react. The way they interact. It isn't the same. They have a release, an abandon, that you long for, hope for, and still live for. But time? It is always against you, and now, you wake up, and there are chances. There are chances. Not in the way you imagined, not in that way at all, but they are there. And not with the person you want them to be with. Why did it turn out like this? If I had her back, would she understand? Play the game that others have played, but in her own way? But she never left, the tricks the mind can play.

What to do. What is at hand, must be attended to. There are reports to read, decisions to be made. There are the rules of this game to play. To break. Glancing around, he wonders, aloud, how it will be this time. How far can he push himself, the rules and the boundries? Yes sir, you are thinking aloud, some lackey, standing just out of shot, says. Yes sir, a lackey, but one who knows the working of this machine, and shall remind you of such over your entire term. Let's just try not and break too much. It just makes it messier for the next one.

I shall start with a speech. To no one but this room. The cough catches my attention, I am aware, but I carry on. This isn't recorded for the history books, this is what I have defined, decided, what the next four years shall be. Everyone is the whole of their history, and I am no different. The mistakes I shall make over my term are the mistakes I have already made. There shall be nothing new, nor is there, but this is my new. How many times have we had the high ideals and the low results? No longer.

There is a pause. Not for any dramatic reason, but because there has been a shift. Now we can see from above and behind him, a panning shot if this were being watched on a cinema screen. As the angle changes, and the scene shifts to take in the window of the small office where these characters are interacting, we can see that the leaves on the tree are indicating autumn, though this bares no relevance to the characters nor the drama they find themselves in. We are just being dragged along on the whim of the director, as his camera ranges to and fro, trying to capture the same detail that could be expressed so much better by the words on a page. But pauses can only last so long, before they are no long a pause.

There is no way I can fix what is wrong. There is no way I can undo the damage that has been done. To unpick it properly would require someone better than me. No, we shall do something different, something remarkable. I can't take advice, as it only requires me to ask someone else for me to get contradicitory opinions. No, consensus isn't the way forward. I could destroy the institutions, build new ones, but the end result would be the same. I could try to influence the schools, sow seeds for another generation to carry on my vision, but that implies I have a vision. Oh, I do, for sure, but it isn't what you think. The lessons I learned, which I would have thought would have made sure the democralottery would have be rigged against me, aren't going to be writ large across the land. That would be insane.

I could grandstand, which, to some extent, is already what I am doing right here, and right now, just to you, yes, I still remember you are here, I have no wish to hide my past, because I am sure you already know. I also know you know my many aliases, but never read my correspondances. You couldn't, and I wouldn't let you. My plots and schemes always remained just so, and I went along with the doped mice as I climbed whatever ladder I was supposed to. Yes, I know, I should have used a maze metaphor, but this, as I speak, isn't rehearsed, even though my whole life has been careening towards this moment.

And what of this moment, this now, this me? Do you feel afraid? Do you know the safety limits in place? As we were sold the idea that there were none, outside of time. And no one can fight time, in the same way no one can waste time, as it isn't theirs to waste. Time, indifferent to any of our pleas, rolling on despite all our best intentions. I know, now it is starting to be a speech, one eye on the main chance, and all that.

Something has got to chance a change. I can see that. I can feel it. Did you know, you offical recorder, that I am an adept? That I can peel the corners of the sky back, and watch what is underneath? You know the books I bought, the ones you could track. But those who can stay outside the electronics, they still have their privacy. So much moved into the electronic realm, indeed, so did I, but not all of me. Not most of me. You watched as much of me as you could, but not enough. Not nearly enough. And now, through some algorithmic joke, I am here, and it scares everyone.

It is all going to start now, what was started decades ago. It is all going to start now, what was begun when I was there. It is all going to start now, what couldn't be said then. It is all going to start now, what should have been done already.

A democracy of one.

Chapter Four