You

• Jake Best, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

You want power. You crave it like no one ever has before. Since you were small, you’ve always been mean to all the kids at school. At kinder you stole their toys and in primary school you punched and kicked. In high school, you ignored all the people who struggled socially. You only talked to people who you thought were at your level. People started to realise your game and by year twelve, you became the one that no one talked to. You were meant to learn your lesson from this, but you didn’t. Instead, things just heated up inside you. Your body started to crackle and burn and fume with anger. While you sit by yourself at lunchtimes and recesses, fists tightened, you think of the power you once had, and now crave.
After successfully graduating from high school, you decide to study politics at university. You don’t make many friends at university and you are always found eating by yourself. Throughout university, you work hard, and become a successful student, receiving good marks. You graduate from university, and you’re not sure what to do next. You’ve applied for many jobs but they just don’t like your attitude. You’re described as cocky and arrogant. But you don’t take this advice. This advice makes you angry. Your craving for power creeps back into and you return to the nasty, feisty boy you once were. However, this time you’re more determined, impassioned to do something big. Power is your goal – that is all you want.
Slowly, you slide up the ranks and feel like you’re finally getting somewhere in life. At the age of only twenty-nine, you are handed the job of assistant to the opposition leader of Australia. Out of your personal determination, you are now temporarily satisfied with your position. You are faithful to your boss, and a have become a good servant to him.
One night, you are watching television in bed and your phone buzzes. It’s a text from your boss saying that you’re fired. When you read it, you are both shocked and upset at the same time. You are uncertain what you have done to deserve this. You throw your phone on the ground in anger and start to cry. But this is no normal cry. This is a cry of a ferocious, antagonised, maddened bull. The same feeling is back – power is seething through your breath.
The next morning you decide to hold a voting ballot against the opposition leader. Media surrounds the situation, cameras flash savagely.
You win the vote. You are now the figurehead of Australia – the opposition leader. You face praise and scrutiny, but finally, you have power. Now it is up to you to make the public love you. To make them vote for you for the top role. Can you leave your troubled past behind you? Can you change yourself as a person? Can you be more accepting? It is in your hands now. Good luck.