Chapter 12

Girdwood’s Tale

"Leadership is the act of knocking yourself out to make sure everyone ‘under’ you is happy. The greatest leaders find themselves serving their followers rather than lording power over them."

-The Secrets of the Universe

The sun was setting on the horizon of hetchie-ketchie land when the wondrous silver arrow fell from the sky. All the people of the yustsie-wanna tribe, and the ikki-gurl tribe gathered around as the giant, and unearthly object from the gods settled as light as a feather to the ground. This, having happened before, did not surprise them, and they sort of watched to see what THIS visitor would bring to them. As the visitor stepped from his vessel, this one pale of skin, and with hair red like the fire of the Micah, the tribesmen started their two-day greeting process. They were exactly three seconds into it, when the visitor cut them off, saying,

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, all your primitive tribal rituals are charming, in a quaint, inferior sort of way, but I am a god, so you had better start worshiping me, and bringing me food, and stuff."

The tribesmen, hurt, and not just a little confused, did all that this "Girdwood" commanded. At the end of his meal, some of the tribesmen came from the other end of the village, and addressed Girdy.

"Oh, great Girdwood, our king says that we do not need to do as you command." The Girdwood’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Does he?" the self-proclaimed deity spoke. The tribesmen looked at the ground guiltily and muttered, "Uh-huh."

"You are primitive tribesmen," the Girdwood patiently explained, "I am a god. You are predestined to serve me."

The tribesmen came back ten minutes later.

"Our king says we have free will."

"Bring this king to me," said Girdy, beginning to feel his position in jeopardy. The tribesmen returned three minutes later and said, "He says YOU should come to HIM."

"He’ll feel my wrath!" Girdy said in what he hoped was a threatening way. The tribesmen just shuffled their feet in the dirt. "Weeell… okay, I will go to see your king, but you will have to carry me on your shoulders, and have one… no TWO young, virgin women with palm branches to fan me."

And so it was that the self-proclaimed deity met the leader of the yustsie-wannas and the ikki-gurls.

"Micah!" Girdy exclaimed in disbelief, "You set yourself up as KING over these people? How selfish can you get?"

"ME selfish? You just set yourself up as their god!" Micah replied.

"You’re the one who’s introducing to these people to technology centuries ahead of them, and grabbing up manipulative political power. All I’m doing is exploiting their naïve’ trust of guys who drop from the sky to get a free lunch or two!" Girdy defended himself.

"Yeah, well if I hadn’t gotten here first, your ‘free-lunches’ would use up all the food these people could gather, and end up killing off their entire population," Micah shot back

"Yeah, so?" Girdy retorted

"You would also be eating your meat raw," answered Micah smugly

"Oh, yuck! Alright, so maybe it’s okay to show them a trick or two, but that doesn’t justify your corruption of these innocent natives," Girdwood amended

"And just where you planning to do with those native girls you’ve got fanning you?" Micah questioned

"That was uncalled for!" Girdy said with a hurt look. Micah grabbed the microphone on the translator box and shouted to the people, "I forbid any worship of this so-called ‘god’." Girdy grabbed the mike from Micah. "Don’t worry, I’ll save your souls from this oppressive ruler! Baptism services will be held at the river in…" Girdy was interrupted as Micah grabbed the translato’ mike away from him.

"This is political warfare, get him, people!" Micah shouted. Girdy swiped the microphone away from him and retorted, "No, this is holy warfare! Get HIM!" Micah grabbed the mike back and shouted, "You are free to think for yourselves!"

"He’s spreading lies and decent," shouted Mike who, incidentally, had retrieved the mike, "He’s the antichrist, a servant of Satan, the first great liar!"

"No, that’s Dave (1)," Micah corrected.

"Oh, right, he’s the second great liar, then!"

"That would be Dan," Micah once again corrected.

"Would you hush, I’m trying to turn the multitudes against you, here," Mike whispered back.

The people were finding this very entertaining, and were naturally disappointed when both of the visitors from the sky where suddenly beamed away by a giant alien ship.