Some naysayers might claim that golf clubs aren’t meant to travel through the air. But the truth is, that they are mistaken and one look towards the sky would prove otherwise.

A golf club cruised across the air at high-speed, passing vast swaths of land. Coming across the green field, passing nearby trees, and startling close by birds.

But as all things, it as not meant to last, everything that comes up must fall down eventually. Even the golf clubs aren’t the exception. In this case however, it won’t go down alone, not unless it takes someone else with it.

Two men who stood in its trajectory turned their heads upwards as they got alerted by an approaching sound. As the golf club descended towards the ground, it radiated fear into their hearts as they got a glimpse of the approaching future.

And as fast it came, as fast it stopped. It was over, the golf club had reached its destination, and it remained motionless among the blades of grass. Leaving behind only two unfortunate victims of its wrath and giving them two painful bruises as a reminder of what has transpired here.

“Two points!”

---

 

“We should vote for him.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“Think about it, who said that I want him to win?” Said William as he sat on a luxurious armchair next to a lit fireplace. In front of him sat Baron Ethan Farley, he’s the man in charge of more rural territories towards the north of the presumed capital.

“Him winning, that would be some crazy miracle. I remember the last time he tried it, he got two votes, and one of those he got from himself. And I am pretty sure that the second vote he got out of pity. He can’t even write properly, I have no idea why he thinks that he can become a king.”

“Then why do you want to vote for him?”

“He randomly invited me to visit him, and when I arrived, he said that I should vote for him. I was really annoyed at him at the time, so I asked him to send me some of his knights temporarily to solve my beast problem in return. And surprisingly, he agreed.”

“Truly? Normally, it’s hard to make him cooperate on anything.”

“I don’t know what got into him, but we might as well use it. You have an opportunity to ask for some favors. Just tell him that you will vote for him, and there you go. It's an easy win.”

“Still, it seems uncharacteristic from him. To be honest, I don’t quite understand why he didn’t do this the last time, or the time before that, or who knows how many times he tried that.”

“It had to be at least thirty, it is kind of impressive that he still keeps trying. What was his best result, was it like seven votes?”

“Surely, it couldn’t have been that many.”

“Well, the important part is that we’ll get the opportunity to profit from it this time.” Both of them lightly laughed as they clinked their glasses. “This wine is good.”

“It better be, it's from one of my best wineries.”

“…”

“…”

“So how about it, are you on board?”

“Why not, I think that I will try to negotiate more favorable trade deals. This is a good opportunity to make some good profit.”

“Ha-ha, that’s right, I'll get a few more favors out of him too. After all, I am helping him out a lot. It would be a shame not to get some of that wasted wealth off his hands.”

“But I still don’t understand why he is doing this now. Did he never try to bribe people before? That is the only possible explanation for his previous miserable results. I mean, you can’t win with bribery alone, but you could get more than single digit votes.”

“Maybe he didn’t realize that he needed to do that. Perhaps he thought that people will vote for him on their own volition.”

“He can’t be that stupid. Don’t get me wrong, he certainly is, but not that much. I refuse to believe that anyone could be that clueless.”

“Whenever he is or not, he has no chance of becoming the king. There are too many factions for anyone to become one. Why would they give up part of their power to somebody else? Most of them are satisfied with the current balance of power.”

“Right. We will probably stay without a king for at least the next hundred years. Nobody wants one in the current political landscape.”

---

 

We are nearing the end of the game.

I wasn’t able to get another double as I hoped for. It's like everyone has been keeping a greater distance between each other. I don’t understand! Thankfully, unlike me, my opponent missed a few of his shots. For that reason, the score is thirteen to twelve, in my favor. If I land this shot, I will be just a one point off the victory.

I look over at our other competitors. They are still hitting the ball. Poor souls, they don’t even know what game we are playing. It’s like they are kids, playing in their own little world, pretending to be doing something they aren’t, while adults are doing the real thing.

They just keep having their own fun, leaving us alone from their presence. Freeing us, to continue our duel at our desired pace.

I focus back on the game. Here I go. I swung the golf club and watched as it made its way towards the next unfortunate soul.

Another one. So easy. Fourteen to twelve.

This game is about to end, we could call… wait. Where are those two? I look away for a moment, and they are nowhere to be seen. Well, whatever, their loss. Their eyes won’t be able to witness my glorious victory.

I turned to Harold. What are you going to do looser. Looser. I keep giving him a smug look. Looser. What you gonna do?

Harold turned away from me and focused his attention on a butler man standing a bit further away.

Feeling his master’s gaze, the butler shouted from the distance. “My lord! This servant is asking for permission to run!”

“Permission. Granted.” Slowly, responded Harold as he readied his golf club.

Upon receiving the response, the butler instantly ran off at an unexpected speed, as if his life depended on it. I watch, as the butler man runs toward the most nearby tree. At the same time, Harold launched his last golf club in his final desperate attempt to get some points.

Watching the trajectory of the club, I realized that it’s too high. It will overshoot him and hit that tree instead. Hah, my victory is irreversible. I watched the whole scene with a smile on my face. What a looser, he shouldn’t have ever messed with me.

The golf club hit the tree with such a force that the whole tree shook. Suddenly, one of the branches snapped and fell to the side, but as that happened, two people fell out of the tree landing right on top of the escaping butler, pinning him down.

“Triple!?”

I look at him in shock, but he ignores me as if nothing happened. “What is this!” I looked back at the human pile. How long were they hiding in there? When did they get there?

“Fifteen, fourteen.” Said Harold as he smugly observed his fingers, pretending not to care.

I lost? How did it come to this? He ran right under them, like, what are the odds? Odds, chance, luck… No. What if he did it deliberately? Conspiracy! Conspiracy I say.

Harold spoke up. “It’s time for us to come back.” He stopped himself and looked around. “But where did those two disappear to?”

“I will go and look for them.” I didn’t wait for a response, and ran off in an instant.

 

As I walked towards the location where I last saw them, I heard voices coming from behind the nearby tree line. That was so easy, they are here.

“I couldn’t have known that there was a pond here.”

“Remind me again of why we didn’t send a servant to get it out for us.”

“We did, twice. Both of them got struck down by golf clubs. So, stop complaining and get the ball.”

“I am trying, I need to get closer. And that was a rhetorical question.”

I peeked out from behind the bush just to be a witness of a peculiar comedy routine.

I found them, both of them are here. They stand at the edge of a pond, one of them holds a golf club and is trying to reach the ball with it. Unfortunately for him, the golf ball sits in the middle of a group of lily pads, just far enough off the shore to be maybe reachable.

The other one holds him by his clothes, allowing him to stand at an angle just to get that little bit of extra distance. They are wobbling back and forth trying to reach the ball, but just barely coming short.

“Just a bit closer. Steady…” He swung with the club and miraculously landed his shot. The ball shoots away at an angle, disappearing behind the trees.

Almost falling into the pond, both of them rolled to the side, landing on the ground.

“Finally, it’s out.”

“But where did it land?”

“In that direction, let’s go there.”

They moved towards the missing ball, but they stopped as they approached the collapsed gardener.

One of them sighed. “Why did we even come here?”

“We can’t afford to have a bad relationship with him.”

“I know, but it’s so frustrating.”

“Tell me about it. This one time I played a chess match against him, it was actually pretty amazing how poorly he played. I even tried to hold back, but I overestimated his skills. He played so bad it was… it was actually quite impressive.”

“Did you let him win?”

“He lost all of his pieces except for the king, while I had lost three at most. I was about to win, but he picked up the chessboard and flipped it around. Obviously, all the pieces flew away, but… somehow… his king fell back on the board in a standing position. Subsequently, he declared victory and asked me to pay up the money we bet on that game. I was too stumped to even argue with him.”

“What luck, it’s hard to believe. Does he have some kind of luck skill, or some kind of weird curse placed on him?”

“I doubt that such a skill exists, but perhaps we just don’t know about it yet.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of magic… or might be really just a crazy coincidence.”

“Who knows, but it’s a real shame. His father was such a competent and respected man, and his son turned out like this.”

Do you think that was luck? You think he cheated with magic? Do you think that I would lose to something like that? No! I refuse to believe that. He’s like a mastermind hidden in the shadows, controlling everything with his inhuman intellect and skill.

Luck? Magic? Fools, he is playing you like a fiddle, and you are too stupid to realize it.

“Hey, I found the ball.”

“Where is it?”

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.” He pointed his finger at a certain location. “See for yourself.”

“What do you mean, why would I…” He ate his words almost instantly as he wordlessly stared at the pointed-out location.

“…”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Who would?”

In the middle of a small pond sitting on a singular lily pad was the golf ball and it just so happened to be barely out of reach.

Looking at this ridiculous situation in front of him, his face contorted into an expression of grief, but it slowly turned into a denial, then anger, depression, and then finally… acceptance.

“I give up.”

 

“…”

I watch the two heartbroken men as they stare into the pond. Background character A and background character B, your pain won’t be forgotten, and your journey will be remembered.

---

 

We traveled back to the mansion. I had enough for today, for the rest of the day I will just relax. I stretched towards the doorknob to open the door to my room, only to be interrupted by a voice from behind.

“Didn’t you forget something?”

A chill ran through my spine as I slowly turned my head and looked at the person standing behind me.

“Pay up.”

---

 

What was once a majestic pile, an enviable achievement, an object of glory, now all but a shell of its former self. I shed a tear as I watched the bowl with only a few leftover candies. My meager candy collection, he even took all the good ones, there’s barely anything left.

I picked up one of the green candy’s and glared at it. He left all the sour ones, he knows his stuff. At first, he took only a half, and now he’s got the rest. What a menace.

So that’s how it feels when you are a novel’s main character, and the antagonist shows up to ruin your day.

But this is not over, one day we will have to settle the score. Our final battle would be turned into a legend for eons to come. But things could also turn out another way… there is a second possibility… If we joined forces instead, our potential would be endless. Nothing could stop us, and the world would tremble under our feet.