Subtle Influence

Subtle influence. How I enjoy it so. It always helped being the quiet kid at the back of the classroom: no one bothered you, and you were free to watch and listen. You learned things about people. What they love and hate, what they're afraid of. What makes them laugh and cry. And I never understood why. Why I hated them all. In time I just accepted the fact that I hated them as a fact, and didn't try to change it.
While I was the quiet kid, I still had a group of friends, if they could be called that. More like a swarm of idiots that clung to me for some odd reason. They provided ample entertainment. A push here, a shove there, a few choice words about the others mother, and there. I had destroyed a friendship and watched with glee as they beat each other senseless.
These games continued for the rest of my school career. I must have destroyed hundreds of relationships. And all the while, I just appeared to be the friend who would sit in the corner and read or keep to myself, except for lend an ear and listen to those I had just wrecked, if only to wreck them more. After I graduated, however, I took an interest in politics. I knew someone like me would do just fine, and I eagerly looked forward to the challenge of ruining someone who was just as capable of ruining me.
Needless to say, I quickly rose through the ranks. Scandals here, fake evidence there, all of it moving me up slowly, while none were the wiser.
Now I sit at the top, on a chair built on the crushed hopes of others. Now that I have nowhere to go, I don't know what to do. I sit, and think. The room was dark. The days work was done.
The chair I sat upon creaked. No one sat in the darkened room, except for me. The walls seemed to move in and out, in and out. They compressed and expanded. More thinking. I felt something I never felt before.
Loneliness.......
I stood from the chair and stepped around the shadows. The walls still moved. I put my hands on them. Were the walls this cold and shriveled? I ran my hands along. It was cold, and wrinkly, and hard.
It flared out and back in again. It seemed to be getting less often. I kept walking, heading for the door.
Another beat, still getting weaker. I put my hand on my own chest.
Another beat. I stumbled forward.
Another beat. I fell on my face.
The last beat. I breathed out. It took this much for me to realize that I not only ruined everyone else, but myself as well. My eyes felt heavy. I'll just give them some rest. I tried to draw another breath in, but it wouldn't come. Blackness met me.
"I'll make it up to everyone," I thought. "Some way I will."