The Museum of Wars

A Short Story about Destiny

There’s these three guys walking on the beach, a spic, a white guy, and a black guy. So they find this pot, rub it, and a genie comes out. The genie says, “You can wish for whatever you want.” So, he asks the Mexican what he wants, and he says “I want all my people in America to be happy and free, and in Mexico.” So, the genie goes *poof*. It’s done. Then he says to the black guy, “What do you want?” and the black guy says, “I want all my nigger brothers to be back in Africa, and happy and free and everything.” So, the genie goes *poof*. And they’re all back in Africa. So, the genie says to the white guy, “What’s your one wish?” And the white guy says, “Wait, you mean to tell me that all the spics and niggers are out of America?” The genie goes yeah, and the white guy says, uh, “I’ll have a Coke, then.”

—The Boondock Saints (1999)

As Emperor of Humanity Blythe Maher walked into the White House press conference room, he noticed a pamphlet on the wall to the right of the entrance that read, “Wars belong in museums.” He’d seen it before. One of the correspondents had put it up there in memory of the Last War. Maher didn’t like it. He thought to himself putting wars in museums is just the sort of arrogant thinking victors and conquerors like to promote. Conquerors like him.

But Maher understood very well that subjugated peoples can’t afford that kind of luxury. Arrogance is the reason why people quickly lose what they’ve fought so hard to win. Winners like where they are in life. They don’t like change that upsets the status quo. They don’t need to risk another war. So they make up stories about world peace, New World Order, and more of that kind of nonsense. Losers, on the other hand, always dream of just one more war that they might win to crown themselves kings. Emperor Maher was ahead of the pack. He’d wisely tamed his arrogance, because he wasn’t going to let anyone take away his greatest victory — the conquest of Earth.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the esteemed press,” Maher began his prepared speech, “the peoples of Earth have long dreamed of world peace. But I fully understand world peace isn’t possible without dismantling the World Order, as Secretary Boot calls it. Today, we embark on a journey to make that dream come true. I have given the executive order to begin the Great Transition, the transition of power from the haves to the have nots.”