This oneshot is based on the song of Tears For Fears: 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World'. Have fun! :)
Everybody Wants To Rule The World
Welcome to your life…
I was to change the world. I was determined to succeed, determined to bring peace to all who needed it. Maybe I was blind, or maybe my vision was clogged by the pink cloud surrounding my dreams. Maybe I shouldn't have let go. Or maybe, just maybe I shouldn't have dreamed at all.
There's no turning back…
For a few months I wondered if I had chosen the right path. Is this really my destiny? Is this really what I wanted? Was their spilling of my community funds on that bunch of lunatics a sign that this would never work out?
Even while we sleep…
I rub my face in a slow, thoughtful manner. Thoughtful. That is how they describe me now. Calculating, thoughtful… Cold. I can't remember anyone calling me cold before. It's not me, I'm cute, cuddly, I have a big heart. I'm Private, for the sake of this country! I silently let my hands drop to the height of my mouth and let them rub my chapped lips. It would be a start if I could stop biting them, but every step, every movement from my part made the world gasp and turn.
He will find you…
It's all my fault, all my mistake. I shouldn't have ordered those troops to fall into that country. I shouldn't have ordered my men to take charge at these relatively innocent protesters. Protesting… Protesting against me. Protesting against the force behind me. Maybe this is not me after all. Maybe it is all his fault. It wouldn't matter that I left him for this position years ago, he imprinted his thoughts, his lifestyle, his everything on me. How can I help it he was the one raising me? How is it my fault?
Acting on your best behavior…
I never did anything wrong! I never set a step out of line. I never spoke before my turn, I never handled before it was needed to. I was a perfect citizen. At this moment, after my hand had made its way to my glass of gin right there on the desk and brought it to my mouth, I start to cough. Violently I heave the air into my lungs and try to blink against the tears welling up in my eyes. I had to swallow that wrong right at this moment, of course. Right when I have to plan out this very, very important plan. I would have to go through with it, I then decide. It was their faith, they had it coming. How can they take a thing that isn't theirs and just decide to blow it up?
Turn your back on mother nature…
But before I rang the bell on my desk so I could set my plan into work, I glance down at the glass right beside it. Poison, pure poison, that's what in it, I would have said years ago. When I made the decision to go for this. When I decided I was the one to change the world for the better. Or at least this country. Because I can do it better. I can do it way better than everyone else.
Everybody wants to rule the world…
And here I am, in an office, in a big, white colored house. With a fence nearly reaching to the sky and an army of bodyguards around it. The house is light, beautifully furnished, bigger than a child can imagine in his dreams. But it is haunted, it is haunting my dreams and I know it won't stop until I have changed this world for the better. That is what the house does to you, it pressures you into making rash decisions you otherwise wouldn't have made that quickly. At that moment I moved my hand and the bell with it. The ringing of the silver always has some calming effect on me. It is as if it told me that now I had made my decision, everything would be alright. I had succeeded, that was what the bell told me. Then, after I put it down, it was grinning at me. As if it was laughing at me right in my face. As if… If I had made a big mistake. I shortly shake my head and brushes my raven black hair lightly with my hand. No, I can't back down now. I have to continue this plan. It will bring peace.
It's my own design…
The men walking into my office are all tall and muscular. I breathe out slowly and give them a polite nod. "Gentleman, I have made up my plan." My voice has a weird sound to it. Maybe I'm just nervous, or maybe it is my imagination. The men just nod and wait without a sound. I tell them my plan. In precise detail I go over the place where they are and where to drop it. In even more precise detail I explain their exact target. Then, we look over the maps, I get some intel on the status of their ongoing missions and how my plans have worked for them. They react neutrally to me, but they seem to avoid eye contact. Maybe I'm too inexperienced, or maybe the gin is finally taking over my brain, but I fail to read their exact thoughts and emotions about this new plan. It's my first, they say. It has to be good, they say. We have to make them a head smaller! One squeaks and we all turn to him, before I rub my face again. Am I doing this right?
It's my own remorse…
I offer them some gin too, to 'celebrate' this happy gathering. They shake their heads and leave my office without having touched more than my desk and doorknob. I'm surprised how much human contact this job is offering. I really had thought it would include more handshaking, more parties and more press conferences. Maybe I'm new at this job… Or maybe I'm not doing it right. It's my bad I hadn't turned on the radio while I was planning. I thought I had needed some quiet time to precisely figure out the solution to my problems. But now, after turning on the magic music box, I couldn't suppress a small gasp. This… I couldn't have foreseen this happening, and it is all on me.
Help me to decide…
Maybe I could call them back, maybe I could stop them from going through with it. I listen in shock to the radio playing its news tune suggesting the hour has ended, yet again. An hour, something that feels like an eternity when you're doing something you won't… An hour, something that feels like a second when you have a deadline and around a million human lives depending on it. I turn to the book, the book. I softly press the leather cover into my left hand and then on my chest. He has to help me. He had to. I'd never done anything wrong. I was always faithful, I was always kind… He has to help me and all the lives I'm deciding over.
Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure…
For some silly reason this always makes me feel the way I felt after the 'winky' incident. It had been a late night and Skipper had ordered me to keep wait right at the outside of our squad. Of course I hadn't been too enthusiastic to be out in the desert cold, searching the horizon for the bringers of hell upon us, but when your commanding officer commands something, you do that. So I went outside, with a blanket and my binoculars and sat there, waiting and waiting. As expected, nothing came and it turned midnight quickly. That was also the exact moment I got tired. I was a young soldier, just nineteen and I hadn't had much experience in the army myself. My arms were sunburned after just a day and my neat British vocabulary was hard to keep up between the flat American English of the others. I had told them about my dream, but they made fun of me. How could a guy like me, cute, small, plain adorable and with a British accent ever be a president? Who would vote for such a guy? They had laughed for minutes, but their laughing only inspired me. Anyway, anyhow, I knew I could do it. I would fight for it. And there I sat, slightly shivering in my blanket and staring at the empty desert. Against my sleepiness, I had sneaked some 'winkies' with me. The sugar rush would keep me up, I was sure of it. The taste of the 'winkies' might have been slightly off, but still I downed them one right after the other. The sugar worked on me within minutes and I started to feel more awake and alert and the minutes just flew by. And then… I don't remember. I woke in my bunk, with a pounding head and heart, all alone. It dawned in after some moments what had happened to me. I sat up and growled the name of a certain fellow soldier. "Rico…"
Nothing ever lasts forever…
People say it is easier to sit behind a desk than to be standing at the front lines. They say they'd rather do the same routine over and over again than the dangerous work. Now that I have experienced both, I wish I could return to the sights of evil and war. To just be a pawn and not the king. To not be one of the more important pieces of the chessboard. To be able to live and to be able to die just for you and not for the world. I threw that all away for this dream, this stupid dream. The radio works like a clock in my office. It announces the hours, every four songs there is a commercial break, a small talk, and then they continue. It is supposed to have a soothing effect on people, I heard, to have the radio on. If only it was soothing to me. With all my thinking, it had been too late to call them back, it is now too late to chicken out. Or to save the world.
Everybody wants to rule the world…
How much does it take to end a someone's life? Can we really give ourselves the right to rule over other people? I wish I could turn back, I wish I couldn't hear the words coming from my right hand's man. It's not me sitting here, behind this desk, in this great fortress of misery and corruption. It's not who I am, it's not who I want to be. I never wanted to be like this. I nod, my hands tremble and rub themselves. I get what I wished for, more people time. I wish I could back out now. I take back that I wanted to have more contact with them. Not like this… I never meant for it to go like this…
There's a room where the light won't find you…
I should flee, I should run. If I cared for living I wouldn't leave this office. It is now my safe haven. They motion that I need to come, that I need to explain my deeds to the world. That if I don't come, they will find me a coward. And we can't do that to the people in this time of need. How can so suddenly change that time? Just an hour ago we didn't have people in a time of this drastic need. Just an hour ago, they were just sitting in their boring offices, with their boring work. Or they would be in their boring homes, with their boring kids. They wouldn't be in dire need of help, they would be sitting there, chatting, going about their routines, living. They would be living…
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down…
" Have you ever thought about the misery behind the news? Have you ever thought about how it would feel to have a life in the warzone? The fear, a paralyzing feeling will come over you every time the earth shakes from the bombs, the dust reaching up to the wind and drifting away from the destroyed houses. From the place people once had their life in. Have you ever felt the terror of going outside and not being sure if you make it back in? Have you seen the last thing a mother will do before the war takes her life?"
When they do I'll be right behind you…
"-She'll reach out for her child and she will shriek, trying to protect it with her own body." My wife just came in. To protect me. She had heard about 'the mistake' and she knew I'd never ever do such a thing on purpose to our people. To our country. No, she can't think of it. She is one of the most amazing people I ever met. She has the same ideals, the same dreams. We would give them peace, freedom. We would better the world. We would do so much…
So glad we almost made it…
Thinking back of my mistake, if I had thought out my plan just a little longer, I would have noticed this small detail. I would have noticed the plane carried half of my own country's people. I would have noticed that I didn't just destroy the terrorists plans. I would have noticed that if I took a different direction I might have saved their lives… Maybe the terrorists will still claim this attack… Maybe I will get out clean.
So sad they had to fade it…
As we walk down the corridors of the house we are all completely silent. Just before the outside door one of the phones of my right hand man go off. He takes it, he nods and his facial expression grows even grimmer. He looks me in the eye and shakes his head.
Everybody wants to rule the world…
We walk to the cars, we turn on the radio. My wife gasps when she hears the live broadcasting count of the nationalities, the numbers of lives lost. The rumors surrounding it, terrorists, inside men, just an accident… The reality will be a greater horror for the world than those.
I can't stand this indecision…
Still, we can go back. We don't need to tell them the truth. Or at least we don't need to do it now. We could say some sort of investigation is needed first and we have not yet a clear view on all the details. Then I could play the touchy-feely president. Comfort the people who have lost their loved ones. I could tell them we would avenge the ones who had taken their lives. I could- I could lie. Is the truth really worth the hassle?
Married with a lack of vision…
How can we possibly foresee the outcomes of whatever we tell the crowd now? Everyone is in a state of shock and this is my first time dealing with a situation like this. I don't know if I am up for it. No, actually, I know I am not up for this. I try to grab my wife's hand, to rub it, to think of our little kid, playing with the sitter at home. She pulls her hand away. The sitter will have the TV on. It's breaking news. She'll tell my boy to come over and look at daddy, there at the screen. To wave at me. To be happy. To be happy while his father killed a few hundred people and is going to have to tell that to the world. I killed them. I now wish I hadn't taken action at all, they'd still be dead, but not by my hands. That would have been better… Imagine the country if this leaks out…
Everybody wants to rule the world…
We get out of the car and I try to shield my face for the cameras, the hundreds of people who have decided to show up in such a short notice. I walk as fast as I can, dragging my wife behind me.
Say that you'll never, never, never need it…
I wish I hadn't been so stupid. I wish I had foreseen that spotlight ruling isn't for me. Everybody blames you, whether you make a right or wrong decision. You can't, you won't ever please the world. People will watch your every step and they'll judge. I take a deep breath, I walk up, I tell the world, the audience, everybody how much I am shocked. I tell them that an investigation is going to be our first priority. I tell them how sorry I am. I tell them I don't know precisely what happened yet. I tell them all the rehearsed lies. I feel like a puppet on strings. A puppet ready to be thrown in a fire and be burned. I'm doomed.
One headline, why believe it?
Tomorrow morning, in the early issue, there will be a page filled with this scandal. There will be heartfelt interviews with the people who lost family and friends. There will be 'investigations' by the papers. And I won't turn up.
Everybody wants to rule the world…
I wish I could back down, I wish I could go home and leave the country with my family. But we can't. I'm in charge, the country is counting on me… Whatever that may bring me. I was going to be president...