I did not notice this before when I walked through the campus. Maybe it is because the student density spiked here but everyone looks so.... slow. Their movement looks awkward. Uncoordinated. They wear the same clothes as they did before, same bodies, same constitutions. Yet they became less, or have I become more ?

  I will assume the latter.

  I look forward to philosophy class. It's been a while. Hopefully Sarah's lullaby can lull me to sleep again.

  I enter the classroom surrounded by wood and paper. Many students are absent today, morning classes are hell. I sit on a bench farthest from the professor. All benches are on ground level so it's easy to hide behind other students ( usually ).

  After some time, Sarah comes into the room. Class begins.

  "Today's discussion will be on the dynamics of power and the resultant effects it has on individuals."

  Then she pauses. Her eyes scan the room and finally settle on me.

  "I would appreciate if the students at the back of the classroom sat further."

  I was the only one at the back of the class. I comply.

  As I sit in the row closest to the professor, this happens only for a moment but she looks at me weirdly. I cannot decipher her expression. Did I do something wrong ? The hell ?

  Anyways.

  She starts the lecture now.

  In a monotone manner, she says,

  "Philosophically, power exists wherever one will meets resistance and overcomes it. A parent guiding a child, a law restraining a citizen, an idea overturning a tradition, a king commanding an army, a silence that ends an argument. All are expressions of power. It does not require cruelty; it only requires asymmetry.

  Power is relational. One does not “have” power in isolation; power appears between beings. It lives in the space where dependence exists. Where one actor’s decision weighs more heavily than another’s. Remove resistance, and power disappears. Remove consequence, and power becomes absolute."

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Her flow suddenly shifts, it becomes more warm. Inviting.

  “That is the textbook framing. In practice, when people think about power, they look upward. Kings. Great men. Politicians. Names meant to outlive the body.”

  She let the silence stretch.

  “Plato feared power. He believed it should belong only to those who did not desire it—philosopher-kings restrained by reason. Even he treated it as a risk, not a virtue.”

  “Aristotle was less idealistic. Power was unavoidable. You don’t erase it. You distribute it. Contain it. Balance it. Like fire.”

  She paused.

  “Then Machiavelli removed the pretense.”

  Several students straightened.

  “He asked what power does, not what it should be. He observed that rulers who clung too tightly to virtue didn’t last. Mercy invites challenge. Compassion creates weakness. Survival demands compromise.”

  She stepped closer.

  “History did not contradict him.”

  Her eyes moved across the room.

  “Kings ruled by divine right while cities drowned beneath them. Rivers of blood flowed at the command of one man. Millions marched to their deaths for words like honor, loyalty, faith. Empires promised order and delivered it briefly, at intolerable cost. Most great rulers began as solutions and ended as warnings.”

  She stopped speaking.

  The pause stretched.

  “This is why the belief persists,” she said. “That power corrupts. That authority erodes humanity. Lord Acton gave it a sentence we could repeat: ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ It comforts us. It absolves us.”

  Her scanned the room. Making sure to look at all the students. For that moment, she held their undivided attention.

  “But it assumes something.”

  The room stilled.

  “It assumes power is the cause.”

  “Nietzsche rejected that. He believed power does not corrupt, rather it reveals. It removes restraint. What emerges is not a monster created by power, but the self that was always present.”

  Her voice lowered.

  “If that’s true, power isn’t the danger.”

  A beat.

  “The danger is what exists before power ever arrives.”

  “Some people hide among the sheep. They wait. When their day comes, it is reckoning. They test the limits of cruelty. They enact suffering without hesitation.”

  “One such man was Hitler.”

  She inhaled slowly.

  “So I ask you. What would you do with power? The world in your palms.”

  She paused for a moment. She sighed. Then she looked directly at me.

  “What would you do?”

  I smiled.

  “I wouldn’t waste it.”