Andy Betz has tutored and taught in excess of 30 years. His novel, short stories, and poems are works still defining his style. He lives in 1974, has been married for 27 years, and collects occupations (the current tally is 100). His works are found everywhere a search engine operates.
My term, the “Franklin Smirk” will go viral once it is read. Bank on it.
When the People Find They Can Vote Themselves Money, It Will Herald the End of the Republic
Benjamin Franklin sat comfortably in the gas chamber. Perhaps he remained calm because he did not have his bifocals on. Perhaps he did not witness the demise of Jefferson yesterday. I believe he knew what Samuel Adams had planned.
Samuel Adams always had a plan.
I saw that smirk that so annoyed Franklin’s judge. The curl of that “Founding Father’s” lips spoke volumes. It was an “I know more than you do” look so many of the newly appointed judges hated to see in their hastily improvised courts. Having so many of the King’s subjects, actually seeing that smirk, during the 10-minute show trial annoyed even him more.
“Benjamin!” It was enough to bring Judge Rollin’s court to order and insult the defendant one last time.
Judge Rollin should have been used to receiving less than expected by now.
Last year, during the reparations portion of the armistice, General Rollin finally received his ballot approved lump-sum payment against the Old Republic and invested heavily in the “Temporal Initiative” to rid the Kingdom of the memory of those “American Revolutionaries” of yore. To General Rollin (who also purchased his new position of Judge in the King’s court) the founding fathers were an impediment to the progress he, and the other new judges, was making toward writing a new history for the new future. By bringing each one forward, informing each of their conviction, and then executing each, the “Temporal Initiative” would leave the King’s subjects hungry, in the intellectual and moral void, for a purpose, a purpose only Judge Rollin would supply.
I knew all of this. From the execution of Jefferson, how could I forget?
And still Franklin smirked.
The time was nigh and Judge Rollin was impatient. The crowd of “official” witnesses grew weary with each passing moment. The door of the gas chamber closed and I saw Benjamin Franklin for the last time. I could not bear to see a repeat of Jefferson’s horrific death.
So I left before the cyanide pill dropped.
In a mere 1 hour later, Benjamin Franklin made his first news conference, interrupting the King’s speech, hijacking the King’s own broadcast monopoly, to quote and honor the memory of Mark Twain (executed three days prior).
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Apparently, Mr. Franklin knew the cyanide pill would not fill the gas chamber with hydrogen cyanide gas, but the entirety of the witness gallery instead. By remaining in the chamber, he would be unexposed to the effects of the toxin. Judge Rollin and the elite members of the “Temporal Initiative” died an equally horrible death to that of Thomas Jefferson.
That Franklin Smirk, as it became to be known, was according to Samuel Adam’s plan.
And Samuel Adams always had a plan.