A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words - Meet Charlie

This post was inspired by an image-based writing prompt in the Freewriters community, A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

This is the image to inspire us;

SOURCE

Meet Charlie. Not his real name, of course. That's unpronounceable to us mere Westerners.

Charlie is an over-achiever. His parents sent him to the best boarding school money can buy. Clean, antiseptic walls, floors that are polished by servants daily, ornamental plants around an open atrium grassed-over with astro-turf because it doesn't involve any messy mud that real grass would grow in. You get the idea.

The problem with Charlie being an over-achiever is that a talent like that is hard to hide. He did his best.

He'd count to ten in his head before sticking his hand up when the teachers asked a particularly difficult question. He learned all about baseball and football to try to fit in with the other boys, but of course he did it online so they soon worked out he couldn't actually play the games. He shared his food with the children in his class. They took all the nice bits and didn't leave much for Charlie.

Despite all this, he was sensitive enough to know they disliked him. He had to grow a thick skin, especially when the other children just took to isolating and avoiding him.

It might have had something to do with his response to a particularly bad bit of bullying.

He knew he wasn't strong or athletic, so couldn't fight the bullies. Instead, he waited until the next chemistry lesson to take his revenge. Quietly mixing up something involving hydrogen and sulphur, he discreetly soaked the blazer of the lead bully as it hung over the back of his chair.

Nothing happened until it dried and a bit of body heat got on it. Then it started to smell. Like, really smell. The full rotten egg stink bomb experience, leached from the blazer to the bully. The poor kid stank his dormitory out for a week, it was impossible to get rid of the smell.

After that, the other kids avoided Charlie. They called him "psycho weirdo", "The Stinkbomb Serial Killer" and worse.

So here we see Charlie, sitting at a study desk in the atrium. All alone. Ostensibly studying for a physics exam. Actually, he already knew he could pass it without any trouble. So instead he was using his tablet to research political science and psychology. Yes, at age 14.

Charlie had made a decision, planned his life out.

At 18, he joined the Civil Service.

By the age of 30, he'd risen to the top of the profession, passing every exam with the highest marks, consistently the youngest person to hold each post.

By the age of 40, he'd built up a complex web of connections and influential associates, using his knowledge of psychology to mask his intellectual superiority and win people over.

Everyone considered Charlie to be a competent, knowledgeable and thoroughly pleasant senior civil servant, even if he was a bit reserved.

By the age of 45, Charlie was Chief Secretary to the President, with essential advice and information always available.

When Charlie was 46, in the middle of an international crisis, the President died. An unfortunate case of food poisoning according to the autopsy.

To resolve the crisis, there was only one man who knew what the President had been intending, and Charlie's extensive network of contacts declared him interim President with emergency powers, all without the fuss of an election.

So there was Charlie. From isolated schoolboy to absolute ruler of one of the most powerful countries on Earth. No one would ever bully him again. He would make sure of it.