Pero stood before a mirror, dressed in a pin-stripe suit. His hair had been tamed with copious amounts of hair spray. For tonight he was to make his debut.

His father had contacted the national television station; money and favours had been exchanged and here he was; about to be the spokesman for a generation on the prime-time politics program. The Nation would find him irresistible. They would beg for more, to impart his Wisdom, Justice and Candours on their troubled souls. His WJCs had caught the attention of the public, he was adored.

He spoke hard truths; then smiled – with a pause. As though he was completely at ease with making difficult decisions; that he was firmly anchored, whilst they, the public, were lost in the moral minefield.

Before the television spectacular, he was to meet first with some businessmen; acquaintances of his father. They required his special touch.

Foreigners from some distance. They wore shades and were curt with him. Tempers flared and guns were drawn; but ultimately, his WJCs won through and the foreigners listened and assented to the terms.

Pero liked to give things acronyms; he liked to test his men on their knowledge of them. If they got it wrong, a lash of his crop soon made them remember. He would have lashed the foreigners too, but his father and his business associates, well they only understood honour. They didn’t understand strength like Pero did.

Today he, Pero himself, contacted the stone mason. For the bust of himself he will display. And everyone will see and know Pero. The mason asked if he wanted an inscription, any words. He told him smiling over the phone. Then paused.

——————

Dynamite! That’s what she called him. The television producer said they had more calls than they had ever. All because of Pero, humble Pero.

He was electric; the other panellists were annihilated upon his rocks of reason; his command of logic and humour. His WJCs rocketed into the atmosphere, exploding in their full glory; covering the ignorant with the magic of Truth. He opened their eyes like they were new born babes.

Just in case of a jealous husband or smaller man might take aim at humble Pero, he brought bodyguards. His father had called the station and made sure that the audience were not filled with those ugly, flea ridden protestors from outside the station; but with fellow intellectuals and thinkers.

They cried his name forth, the cheers and chants far outweighing the ineffectual boos of the ignorant.

“My friends. My Country. I am humbled to be here, for I am a no-one. Just like you. I feel your anguish and pain.”

He almost poked a podgy finger towards the camera at the word ‘you’, but that didn’t feel statesmanlike in such refined surroundings.

“I am humble. I only want to share my heart with my fellow country men.”

Later in the debate, another panellist had the audacity to question his manhood. He arose to prove his point, but was becalmed and mollified by the chairwoman and his guards, back into his seat and pants. Pero wouldn’t sink to their level; depraved and undignified. He straightened his tie, integrity unbesmirched.

——————

His bust had arrived. The mason had asked what material he wanted it to be from, he replied granite. As hard and tough as the Earth itself. The bust was a dirty-grey and too heavy to lift. But that suited him, when the bust was in his Governors office they would feel his gravity radiate.

Why Governor? Why not President?

“President Pero meets with the President of the United States for summit talks on global warming and war.”

Pero stood before the mirror. He smoothed his suit with his right hand.

To Chapter Seventeen – The Aged and Withered Member of an Old Donkey