The 15th Library

The 15th library opened with the gifted, $400M 747-8 ostentatiously parked in the lobby of the 47-floor edifice, but his mind was firmly locked instead on the hulking donated stone and precious metals sculpture discretely installed in the basement gallery. He had liked its heavy, imposing effect when it was first presented for display in the library. It embodied all traits he held dear which had made him all he would become. Now, though, a loathing of that art piece had gradually seeped into him at what felt like a cellular level. He wondered why he had rejected the other sculpture which had glowed so brightly golden. His favorite of colors.

The opulent penthouse bedroom–silent, save for rhythmic, muted mechanical click and soft informative chirp of medical monitors doing their things to control other devices automatically prolonging life beyond all reasonable extent–now simply contained him. To the decrepit invalid unmoving and prone on the smartbed, they sounded like gavels falling within walls and cane toads calling with portent from water hazards out on the attached eighteen-hole course. He'd spent a lifetime demanding the spotlight while occupying such magnificent structural marvels, but now the stage was confined to space between his ears.

Locked-in Syndrome, LIS, they whispered, thinking he could not hear them. Or perhaps knowing he could. Agonal was another whispered word they used when referring to his condition, with what he considered poorly concealed degrees of gleeful hope.

That might be, he thought, but I'm damn sure not a goner just yet.

Look at them, his mind sneered, trying to conjure the familiar venom which had sustained his sense of worth for so many decades. They think I am weak. They think they’ve won. He tried to summon the old, intoxicating rush of seething spite—the thrill that always came from ruthlessly crushing an opponent or publicly mocking a subordinate. It was the fuel that had propelled him to the highest seat of power in the world.

But the engine was sputtering. The anger wouldn’t catch. Instead, a cold, clinical clarity began to flood the degrading extents of his long-diseased brain.

Why isn't it working? he thought, a sudden spike of panic piercing the fog. Where is the incendiary surge and rush of victory?

He forced his memory back through the decades of his reign. He looked for the monuments to his greatness. He saw rallies packed with roaring crowds wearing red acronym hats and t-shirts chanting his name in rabid furor. He saw the rivals ruined, the laws bent to his whim, the oceans of wealth he had amassed, accentuated by gaudy gilt attached to mantles and walls wherever he dwelt. By every metric he had ever valued, he was a god.

Yet, looking at the ledger now, the numbers and gold leaf applied to everything meant absolutely nothing.

The crowd’s roar echoed in his recollections, but it sounded hollow and distant, like wind howling through an empty cave at the bottom of a hollow. They didn't love me, the realization struck him like a physical blow. They loved the mirror I held up to their own anger. And I only loved the reflection.

He tried to pivot, desperately searching for a single moment of genuine connection to anchor his sinking soul. He thought of his wives, his children, his closest, most devoted aides and advisors. He had bought them, used them, discarded them, or demanded their total submission with mere finger motions. He had gloatingly viewed their tears not as pain to be concerned over, but as response to failure of strict, unwavering compliance to each and every self-serving impulse. He had taken sadistic pleasure in watching them break, believing that their brokenness proved his absolute supremacy.

Now, he reached out for a memory of warmth. A hand held in comfort. A shared sorrow. A moment where another person's grief had made his own heart honestly ache.

There was nothing.

The void inside him wasn't just empty; it was a howling abyss. For the first time in his life, the armor of his delusion cracked. He did not feel pity for himself; he felt the catastrophic weight of an irreversible math formula. He had spent upwards of a century consuming everything and everyone around him, yet he was now dying entirely hollow.

I never felt it, the thought vibrated with excruciating, agonizing weight. Not once.

Vivid visage of the other sculpture, the one he had so angrily refused to accept, filled his mind's eye. He realized why he had rejected it, now understanding the depth of his depravity, and why he had reacted to it with such vehement distaste when it was presented.

He understood, in this final, terrifyingly lucid microsecond, what empathy actually was. It wasn't a weakness to be exploited. It was the very fabric of human existence. It was the currency of life, the only thing that gave survival any meaning. And he had skipped across the surface of that basic truth like a flat stone, never once breaking the water, never once getting wet. Until now, as empathy became the only sensation he yearned for.

The realization was a suffocating indictment. His entire life—the presidencies, the power, the billions, the vast, lethal destruction, the twisted triumphs—was not a grand conquest. It was all flawless, unmitigated failure. He had built a fortress of ego so impenetrable that he had successfully locked himself out of the human race. He had won every battle, only to realize now how he had lost the entire universe.

The mechanical clicks and chirps of medical monitors all sounded in unison one last time before the flatline tone activated. In the darkness that descended, there was no echo.