Swift Unbound (Fiction, 2001)

Swift Unbound
or;
Savior of the World


Swift sits day-after-day at his desk trying to right the wrongs of the world. He searches for the precise word for the perfect sentence that would denounce the vice and rampant greed that he knew was enveloping every soul. He hopes that if he finds the right phrase his vision of perfection will spread among the masses and bring about certain change. He's convinced that the complete moral decay that he's only recently found is due to his lifelong inability to affect this change.

Fifty years, that's how long he had been a writer. Always with one thought in his mind: That the ills of society were his to correct, but despite his  efforts, Swift was never able to bring about change. He'd written edifying articles for years about the poor and homeless and yet the dispossessed never ceased to exist. He had authored innumerable articles on government fraud, always with an eye toward reform, but graft still powered the political process. Nothing that he had ever written had ever affected an actual, meaningful change. The underprivileged were still the deprived and the disenfranchised still had no voice.

Swift, now aged, had until recently, given up writing. He'd found solace for his loss at a local Pub. The owner remembered Swift when he was a young reporter with a head full of ideals, and a pen full of acid. He'd point toward Swift and tell strangers in the bar how, despite Swift's penchant for muckraking, he'd been an affable young man, always animated in his speech and free with a smile. The owner would tell these new patrons how Swift never worried about his appearance--that he'd wear the same crumpled suit with no tie for what seemed like an eternity.

Swift had been a quixotic young man who'd tilted at many windmills. He was always ready to fight for and to right all of societies ills. Like many idealists, he had been over-zealous and impractical, choosing his causes indiscriminately, deeming each to be of equal importance. Taking each cause to heart, he'd fought each battle with committed passion, but not always with discretion.

That, however was long ago. The man who sat on the bar stool was shriveled and worn, with battle scars showing as wrinkles on his face. There was no indication of his once friendly manner...of how he'd once been. Now, he was just another disgruntled, disillusioned old man--a casualty of his own unfulfilled expectations.

As he'd sit at the bar with head turned down staring at his beer he'd mumble incoherent oaths which would become lucid only after several drinks. These expletives, decrying his failures, were the culmination of his existence. In the end, his life had dissolved into this pathetic scene.

Then late one evening he had discovered the truth: That the world's last vestige of decency had been surrendered. He hadn't discovered this in a lifetime of fighting and losing, nor in his life long crusade for truth and reform, but instead he had suddenly discovered the fact in the most common of places--in dream.

God had spoken...announced the horrible truth...that the profligates now ruled the earth. Swift, as the only virtuous man remaining, was told by God that it was imperative that he right this wrong...that only Swift's pen could save mankind.

The old man awoke, sure in his being called..that God had spoken to him. That the future of humanity depended upon him--and so Swift, with a deep sense of urgency, began to write once again.

Finally a chance at redemption--to finally bring meaning to his life. An opportunity to right every wrong. God had spoken and Swift never doubted His words. Swift knew, just as sure as he understood that God had addressed him, that he'd be successful this time.

Still, what could he write? What would persuade all of mankind that they were headed for eternal damnation? Swift had to find the answer and express it in unequivocal terms, because in his mind, man's salvation rested solely upon him.

Thus Swift sits day-after-day, barely sleeping, rarely eating, trying to create a persuasive plea to the world. He believes that he's short on time, that it may already be too late...so his hands nervously shake as he types out his petition. Swift is convinced that a misspelled word or a convoluted sentence could bring about the damnation of us all; and if he  loses his train of thought or fails to make his point, billions of lost souls will be doomed to an eternity in hell.