A House of Cards
Cameron Osterman '21
Let me take you back to a time long, long forgotten. A time before it all began. A time before it all ended.
He sat at a large, wooden table, his blazer resting lazily on the back of his chair, his tie and his collar loosened, and his slicked hair slightly tousled. Eyes half shut, fingers tapping one by one against the wood, he exhaled slowly, letting the cobalt-gray smoke seep from his lips to the ceiling. The smoke clouded his vision – it clouded his judgement. He went for another drag, thought better of it, and twisted the butt of his cigar into the tray, letting an ashen cloud rise slowly from it. He must have thought of his wife – of how she had asked him to break his habit, and how his attempt to satisfy her wish was futile.
I don’t mean to say this man was a lowlife, though perhaps it seems that way. No, he was the best there was to offer. It wasn’t his fault. If not for him, someone else would have left it in tatters.
Yes, this man was special. He had grown up in a small, rural town much like this one, worked his hide off – as he was fond of saying – and graduated summa cum laude from a prestigious university whose name, like his time, is forgotten.
Legend has it that there was a box of cards on his sprawling desk, though perhaps this is just metaphor. It does seem a bit too symbolic – too much a foreshadowing of the rest – to be true, does it not? In any case, as the legend goes, he studied the box intently. Thinking nothing of it, he reached for the box and listened to the nearly inaudible sound of cards slipping out into his hand. They were smooth, ivory in tone, and perfectly unbent. He placed the stack on the table, slid two cards from the top, and leaned them against each other to form an isosceles triangle. Then he made another. And then another. He stacked the triangles until he had no cards left, and a pyramid on his desk in front of him. Legend has it he pulled a single card from the bottom and watched it all crumble. Legend has it he smiled.
Suddenly another man barged into the room. He was on the shorter side, his hair was receding, and he was moderately overweight. He came into the room breathing heavily, perspiring slightly, and took a handkerchief from his coat pocket to wipe his forehead. He looked as if he wanted to leave that room as much as his hair wanted to leave his head. He cleared his throat timidly and addressed the man at the table.
“Pardon my interruption sir, but…well, I’m not exactly sure how to say this. I mean I am, but— ”
“Good God,” the man at the desk mumbled in his lackadaisical, rural drawl, “Just spit it out, Jefferson.” He wasn’t particularly known for his patience.
“Well... To put it simply, sir… They refused to comply.”
Silence. The man at the desk was suddenly altered, completely still, staring forward as if he had heard nothing. Leaning back now, he rested an elbow on the arm of his chair, placed a hand over his mouth, and sat with his eyes wide open.
“Course of action, sir?”
He stood abruptly – leaned on the side of his desk with his hands buried deep in his pockets and his nails into his palms. He looked now at a flag hanging from the wall. Legend says it was the red of blood, the white of bone, and the blue of tears. He looked at that flag for some time. I figure he was deep in thought. The correct course of action seems obvious to us, of course, but it is only fair to note that it was a much different time. It goes without saying that it was a much better one as well. The man was almost quieter in speaking than he was in silence.
“The course of action, Jefferson, is that we follow through. We warned them and we can’t just let them think they can do whatever they want without consequences.”
“But Mr. President, that –”
“We have to follow through.”
***
They walked down a marbled hallway, their fearful steps echoing from wall to wall, until they came to a guarded room. Only the man was allowed to pass through the thick, steel doors which, by some forgotten magic, shut automatically behind him. According to legend, that room held the reins over an ancient evil. God forbid us from harnessing that evil once again.
The man was alone now in the semi dark, the doors sealed behind him. He must have thought of his wife again, of his rural town, of all the hide he worked off, and of his prestigious alma mater. I figure he wished he had brought another cigar to calm his nerves. There were tears in his eyes, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away. He let them carve through his skin.
Slow, slower, and slower even still, he reached his hand tentatively forward. He placed it on a sort of panel, and suddenly it shone a bright, sickly shade of crimson. And that was that. A deluge of flame descended from the heavens, crushing everything in its wake, and leaving all else – leaving the few who survived – horribly altered. The children who weren’t stillborn sprouted limbs from their torsos – heads from their shoulders. And the man? He watched the world crumble. He watched it crumble like a house of cards.
