BLINDMAN ONE

He rules in secret. He is the masked one behind the stage, pulling all the strings, the grand director of this drama. There are two ways to stay safe from one's enemies; there are two ways to remain hidden in this world. The first is the method the Presidents and world leaders use. Everyone knows their addresses, everyone knows where they are at a given moment; but they have so many legions as their guard it would take an army to attack. But this one who rules in secret, this one who is the man who pulls the strings, presses the buttons, tells the actors to move hither and thither, directs the orchestra: this one uses the second method of safety. He is that bum you saw on the corner; he is that old woman sitting in a wheelchair in the store; he is that rough-looking figure you saw walking down the street, who you were afraid would attack you, whom you were more afraid of than he was of you, though you could have killed him so very easily. In this way, with the ruler's defenses at a magnitude of zero, he is free to be anywhere at any time; no one knows his face, his sex, his species; he moves freely about our city streets, and he is always disguised. He rules in secret with an Iron Rule; the President is equal to the lowest army grunt compared to him. No one knows the slightest thing about him; perhaps a thousand people in the world know he exists; no one knows where he is at any time, and no one seeing him would recognize him. Thus is his rule made all the more powerful; thus is he made all the more safe. In trying to assassinate him one would have to kill people at random; there is no telling what form he takes on at any given time. He rules from a secret locale in an unknown region, wearing clothes ordinary and plain, with no entourage or personal bodyguard. And thus to take him out would be impossible, and in this way does he grow in strength and power decade by decade, century by century, millenium by millenium. Ten thousand years from now we will have learned nothing of him; and indeed is his rule unrecognized and absolute; cruel, tyrannical, near infinite in power. And yet a man just passed him by, as he sat on a park bench in some shady place; this man could have easily strangled him, and he would have been put out from the cosmos forever. But no one knows him; and indeed his very existence is debated by the best minds, and scoffed at by the most intelligent of all.