herod
i learned pretty early on how to get what i wanted. i would tweak things to benefit me. to be what i wanted them to be.
i wasn’t told “no”. i was told - anything you want is yours. so i took what i wanted. i took who i wanted.
i was pretty high up on the ladder. some people say my father helped me up a few rungs, but... i deserved it. i was ‘great’.
and once i was there, nothing was going to change that. no thing and no one!
opportunity knocks. they say. me? i say hunt opportunity down and bleed it dry.
i make it happen. if you stand in my way, you won’t be standing long.
and people didn’t normally stand in my way. so imagine my surprise when i hear the buzz about someone who will be taking my place.
me! i’m... king here. people don’t just replace someone like me.
and then i find this person isn’t even grown yet. he hasn’t spent his life grooming for this or defending it. killing for it.
he’s.. just a baby.
people are going nuts over some ancient... myth! some mumbo jumbo about this infant who they think is going to take my place. even surpass me.
i have done anything and everything to maintain my title, my power, and i am not about to let some sniveling, supposedly “special”, baby with a few ‘fans’ change things. do they have any idea what i can do? what i have done?
i am not going to take this sitting down. sitting is for the weak. sitting is for people who cannot stand on their own. that chair is where people lose themselves and give up every ounce of who they’ve made themselves to be and replace it with fear and dependence and a sad state of worthlessness. they don’t even belong to themselves anymore.
i will not sit down. i belong to me. i will not be thwarted. i will not be replaced. i make it happen!
i am great! i am all i need. i am second to no one.
i am herod.
my friend jim nailed this piece. jon asked me later how i thought jim did and i told him he did this exactly the way i had imagined it. exactly. very very well done, my friend.