repair, and then he slumped into the seat.
"What the Hell happened, anyway?" he finally asked.
Oscar shrugged. He didn't know what to say. Should he tell the truth? There was no point to it. No one had to know. He would simply have to live with the shameful knowledge of his actions for however long God saw fit to make him suffer. And the question he would ask himself, for the rest of his life, was, “Did I intend to hit the pilot with the extinguisher, or the board?”
And live he did—for another twenty years—every day being regarded as the 'Hero who saved the Human Race." Every statue, every school, every street named in his honor, it was all a stinging stab in the heart and conscience. Death by a thousand paper cuts, as the saying went. Shame was his punishment for his behavior. Shame for pretending to have the power of a God. Shame for attempting to murder trillions of Charlies. Every shameful moment of every celebration and accolade was more miserable than if he’d just stayed on Earth and died like the tiny, insignificant old man he was. He never smiled at any of the celebrations. No one understood why. They assumed he was just humble.
Oscar's dying breath, which no one understood but which was recorded for all times, was simply, "How ironic." It was noted in all the histories of the planet how his face instantly relaxed into the sweetest of smiles. Images of his smiling face eventually made it into the histories too, along with admiring captions such as, "Oscar Bradfield – Savior of the Human Race—upon his death, knowing he insured the survival of the human race for eternity."
~The End~
About the Author
Scot McAtee started out his professional life teaching High School English in Northern Indiana. After a yearlong stint in Inchon, Korea, teaching English to native Koreans, he returned to Indiana where he teaches High School classes in Business and Computer Sciences. He spends his free time creating movies, video games, digital music and writing other sci-fi and horror novels. His favorite authors are George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Aldous Huxley and Clive Cussler. And although it may be hard for Westerners to see the likeness, his Korean students frequently called him Brad Pitt.
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