As Sarah walked off the stage forty foot tall images of her beamed from towers placed among the crowd which allowed people a half mile away from the stage to watch her exit. The crowd continued to cheer even after she disappeared from view. And then a small old man leaning on his walker was elevated to the height of the platform. The cheering, clapping and yelling stopped but when five hundred thousand people whispered Henry all at once to each other it was anything but quiet. Henry Jasper took slow careful steps toward the center of the stage as a upholstered chair with arms was carried onto the stage and placed in the spot Sarah had just spoken from. Henry’s close friends recognized the chair as the one he sat in while he had his evening coffee in his simple home. Henry had dressed for the event, his overalls were new and unwrinkled, his boots were black and polished to a glittering shine. Henry took his time making sure he had a firm grip on an arm of the chair and scooted his feet into proper position before he lowered himself carefully to his chair. The smile and look of accomplishment on his round face as he adjusted himself comfortably into the soft cushions inspired the crowd to cheer. Henry waved a hand to let them know that was enough of that but the wave just inspired more cheers. Henry decided to wait them out and just sat patiently until the cheering died down.
Without notes or prompter, without any planned speech at all, Henry Jasper began talking, just talking, like he was sitting in his favorite chair in his den. In the quiet voice of an old man he said, “I never meant to become a king.”
The crowd chanted, “Henry, Henry, Henry,” for a good sixty seconds before they allowed him to speak again.
“For some reason I saw the needs of Earth before they became needs and with a lot of help we saved the Earth from starvation before anyone starved. It’s true, we worked hard but people were dying to save the Earth. Our jobs were not filled with life and death decisions; unlike those flying fighter planes, or those infiltrating enemy lines, or those who ran to escape clouds of poisonous gases, our job has been to produce life in order to preserve life. Not a bad job, if you ask me.”
The crowd cheered.
Henry closed his eyes and rested a moment until the noise died down, “In my shortsightedness I thought our rescue efforts would be ended about now. I thought we would be done feeding the Earth and we all would return home about now.”
In unison the crowd shouted, “this is our home,” like, as if, it had been rehearsed.
“I know, it’s my home too. When it was finally realized that we had not only provided food but we had settled a new planet we looked to a future where the Earth would no longer need us and we would have to survive on more than just agriculture. Someone, I don’t remember who, suggested we attract tourists from Earth. It was a pretty good idea and has had some success. We built places to camp out and costal resorts. Trenton and Sally have set up a popular, what do you call that thing Trenton?” Henry looked to where we were sitting just past the edge of the stage, “a dude ranch?” I gave him a shrug and he grinned. “That’s been pretty successful. The most successful project of all is the amusement park on the coast not far from here.”
A cheer and a bunch of foot stomping went up, mostly from university student in the crowd.
“But something unforeseen has happened.” The crowd went silent. Unforeseen things were not necessarily good things. Henry added quickly, “it’s not bad.” The crowd relaxed. “We’ve been doing some studies, at least students here at the university have done some studies, I read them,” Henry paused a second and then added, “I’ve skimmed them.” Some in the crowd laughed a little and some clapped. Earther’s have decided, for the most part, not to become farmers. Our studies have come to the conclusion that Earth will remain dependent upon our produce for as long as we are able to foresee.”
Having said what he felt was important Henry started telling stories about how Jasper’s had fought for farmland, stories about old army surplus equipment that couldn’t be trusted, and stories about friendships. He was no longer giving a speech, he was just an old man reminiscing. Some of the stories included me. He mentioned my arriving in a fuel container at fourteen years of age. It was an old story and most of the crowd had heard it already, luckily he didn’t ask us to stand or anything. He spoke for well over an hour and not a single person grew tired of listening. When he stopped and signaled for a little help getting out of his chair people cheered and chanted, “Henry,” the whole time he shuffled off the stage.
david blankenship 