Not so long ago nor far away, in his study, Mr. Wormley sat pondering, his spine resting firmly against the oxblood leather. A hint of peppermint tried but failed to hide that other smell. His eyes, red-rimmed and baby-blue, peered out over his grandpa-glasses, wire-rimmed and half-moon shaped. Steepled before his chin, stood ten fingers—more or less—bound, one by a simple band of iron, another a matching band of gold. Piercing the herringbone lapel at his breast was a silver pin, an emblem of some thing, once treasured. What it was, it does not matter.

From behind the pulpit and the podium, he had oft heard, and even said that “Character is destiny” and by all the weight of evidence and analysis, of history and experience, by doctrine and dogma, he knew it to be True, with a capital-T. Along the sides of his neck, an opposing pair of muscles rose up in tension. Because along his voyage home, from behind the dead-eyed driver of his ride-share—one vessel among the collective Uber-commanded fleet that carries the world’s human cargo hither and thither—he had now also heard ”It’s our party, we can do what we want.”

Deep breath.

The red oak desk beneath his elbows lay dull with the patina of heavy use, drips of long-dried coffee, and the rings sweated out by cold glasses. When the ancient oak had fallen, had given its life so as to give him his desk, at least one man had heard the sound. Yet his words none would hear; not above the din out there, nor within the gentle hum in here. Nonetheless, in a ragged but even baritone he spoke, like vinyl played in a post-modern jukebox, one to which a compact disk would be a relic, an eight-track tape an enigma. His words: “Perhaps both are right.”

None answered.