Purging Heretics and Xenos Scum

 A warhammer Christmas Song. 

Please sing it to the tune of "God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen", and by all means, please enjoy. If you are musically inclined and can put it to actual tune, please comment where I can view it!

Purging Heretics and Xenos Scum 

For the Honor of the Emperor,
We’ll march straight into hell!
In defense of the Imperium,
Even unto death.
With his banner unfurled We’ll defend our worlds
Right down to our last breath!
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum
Xenos scum!
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum.

Though Tyranids surrounds us,
And Chaos does its worst,
We’ve held our own in the darkness
And Mankind still endures
And with our father on the golden throne
Our victory is assured,
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum
Xenos scum!
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum.

Orc and demon armies swarm
But but no matter what they do,
If we stand united, brother,
Mankind will see this through!
So don’t lose faith in these trying times
Lest Inquisition will purge you too
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum
Xenos scum!
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum.

One day when this war is over,
And our enemies are gone,
We can retire to the shadows
while Mankind has a new dawn!
And we can be a people again
Instead of a race of pawns
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum.
Xenos Scum.
Purging heretics and Xenos scum.

So that’s my dream, my brothers!
I pray its yours as well!
That we should save our fellow man
From the warps chaotic Hell!
And to the end of this great work
We’ll devote every available shell
Purging Heretics and Xenos scum.
Xenos Scum.
Purging heretics and Xenos scum!

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Home

Two hundred plus miles
and multiple sleepless nights
now done. I am home. 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Finished

 Finished

Forty Two minutes,
Fifty four seconds, and then
I got my medal. 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Last Night

Last Night 

Like a dam had burst, 
I wept openly last night;
bittersweet relief!

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

I Don't Remember

 

I don’t remember

I am sure it happened.
It must have happened.
But…
I don’t remember.

I don’t remember
my mother singing me to sleep
or running her fingers through my hair.
It’s not that she didn’t,
or that she didn’t care,
It’s just…
I don’t remember.

I don’t remember
the last time my old man
said “I love you”
or if he ever said he was proud of me
before he passed away.
Surely he did?
Surely he was?
And yet…
I don’t remember.

I don’t remember.
I struggle to recall,
and I fail every time.
So I make extra effort
to sing to my kids,
be silly with them,
run my fingers through their hair,
pick them up,
hug them,
hold them,
Tell them I love them,
Tell them I am proud of them,
just for being themselves,
so that one day when it’s too late
they won’t have to struggle
that same struggle I do,
they won’t have to try to conjure
 a lost thought
(if it ever existed?)
and say those words
with the same tears I shed…
the same sorrow
the same frustration:
“I don’t remember.”

Instead,
when I am gone,
let their tears be happy
though bittersweet,
Full of memories of love and pride.
That one day,
they may look back
and say firmly through the tears:

“Yes, I remember!”

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Morning Cycle

 Morning Cycle

A nine mile trek?
I will improve my distance
after this Wednesday!

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Thanksgiving

 All are returned home, 

Recovering in their beds. 

One grateful papa.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Wiped Out

 Chills, Puke, and Fever, 

Dehydration! We succumb;

The E.R. awaits...

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

After work.

Pull into the drive,
Son shouts that Daddy is home:
I am a blessed Man! 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Specter of the Spectrum.

 Specter of the Spectrum.

They mean well, they do.
But each enrollment request
stabs me in the heart. 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

 Practice Run

One step. Then the next.
Play list on. Cadence Breathing.
Until: 5K done.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Nanowrimo

 Nanowrimo

I shall take the quest
and write a novel this month
for Nanowrimo

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Facebook

 Follow me on Facebook if you have one!

https://www.facebook.com/share/14NnuUp5HaV/

Midlife Ponderance

 Midlife Ponderance

What could be the point of having a dream
when you have reached the middle years of life?
Half of your time has passed, and now it seems
you’re just waiting for the end to arrive,
like a wide-eyed deer caught in the headlights
of a Mack Truck going thirty over.
All pursuits now are a roll of the dice
where chances of success are much lower;
Yet I can’t give up these dreams that remain,
the ones that aren’t shattered to shards at my feet,
though success unlikely, I shall refrain
from giving up and admitting defeat.
Now charge forth with drive and hunger aching!
The point? It’s Purpose of my own making!

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

IYKYK

You say six seven.

But let's focus on one ten.

It's a noble cause. 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Song of the Damned

SONG OF THE DAMNED 
(It helps to sing it...)

If you bleed by the gallon,
 then they’ll bill ya by the ounce.
 If you take too long to pay,
 then the legal team will pounce.
They demand their pound of flesh,
 they want your arm and leg…
 They’ll go for all you have
 no matter how you beg.
 
Soooo the poor are thus made poorer
and our life is thus made worse 
and all so the shareholder
can overflow his purse!
We're damned for all we do,
We're damned for all we try,
We'll be damned when it’s over too
cuz they'll bill us just to die!
 
The energy company is 
Raisin’ them rates again,
and it’s the working family man
that has to take it on the chin
They don't care bout me and you
long as they get their bottom line,
and they'll damn us to the darkness
if we short ‘em half a dime...

Soooo the poor are thus made poorer
and our life is thus made worse 
and all so the shareholder
can overflow his purse!
We're damned for all we do,
We're damned for all we try,
We'll be damned when its over too
cuz they'll bill us just to die! 
 
Children told to borrow money,
 encouraged by their schools,
 to “Seek degrees and good careers”,
 otherwise they’re fools.
And Poor ol mom and dad,
 wishing their kids some better fates,
encourage these “student loans”,
 thinking all will turn out great…
 
Soooo the poor are thus made poorer
and our life is thus made worse
and all so the shareholder
can overflow his purse!
We're damned for all we do,
We're damned for all we try,
We'll be damned when it’s over too
cuz they'll bill us just to die!
 
The cost of livin’, what it is,
We can barely afford our rent,
 utilities and groceries,
 hardly leaving us a cent.
Then those bankin’ bastards
demand what they claim is theirs,
 Oh, We’re living off borrowed hope,
while they live off their daddy’s shares.
 
Soooo the poor are thus made poorer
and our life is thus made worse 
and all so the shareholder
can overflow his purse!
We're damned for all we do,
We're damned for all we try,
We'll be damned when it’s over too
cuz they'll bill us just to die! 
 
Uncle Sam is raising taxes,
on what we make and spend,
he gets us coming and going,
and what's it for again?
He says it’s to help the people,
to help elevate the poor,
but what he doesn't give to foreigners,
he uses to fund another war...
 
Soooo the poor are thus made poorer
and our life is thus made worse 
and all so the shareholder
can overflow his purse!
We're damned for all we do,
We're damned for all we try,
We'll be damned when it’s over too
cuz they'll bill us just to die! 
 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

A Change

A Change:

An overdue change,
a gameplan is being made,
the future starts...now

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

A Morning Plea

 A Morning Plea

Coffee, do your thing:
Stir my bones, and wake my flesh,
to seize fast this day!

Farewell

 Farewell

Ad meliora
It means: Toward better things.
May they come swiftly!

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Mad World

 Mad World 

The world is mad…
              Mental, and broken.

I rail against it…
              but it pushes back.

Its madness weighs upon me
              Like concrete shoes
              on a Jersey riverbank
                             at midnight.

What passion fools have!
What convictions they have!
Yet their betters remain silent,
              Offering small words in rebuke,
                       or videos of condemnation as tokens
              Not realizing more commitment is required
                                  to preserve us from the madness.

Swirling, swirling, ever swirling!
              Like a black mist so few can see,
                              swirling around the masses
              and individuals in tandem
                            like a schizophrenic tornado cell!

Swirling and swirling until like a tidal wave
              it rushes upon the mind,
                            Breaking it…  
                                           Taking it…
                                                          and there can be no mistaking it:
                             even the soul becomes clouded and muddied
                                           with a madness that ever grows…

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

A Question

 A Question

What Chaos rages
in the heart of a father
trying to provide?

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Paperback is available!

The Paperback version of Echoes and Embers is Available now on Amazon!

https://a.co/d/75kOyP0

If I were a Rich Man

If I were a Rich Man

If I were a rich man,
like the kind you see on TV,
I wouldn’t be contented
to let the world just be.
Playing with stocks and bonds
like a child playing with Legos,
Making nothing important,
just watching highs and lows?
Not at all, my brothers,
why have such wealth if not to act?
Why have safety just to see,
our innocents attacked?
And how dare those bastards,
who see and then turn a blind eye,
to foreign atrocities
under our native sky?

If I were a rich man,
You could be sure that I would act
with men and munitions
sent promptly to enact
a Reclamation war,
to cast out our traitors and foes,
and to protect our young ones
from all the savage blows
that they have long suffered
under those who call themselves men
yet hide behind guard and wall
and do not experience
the horrors faced by all
due to the limp wristed
laws they have forced on their own folk
where natives are second class,
under a foreign yolk.

If I were a rich man,
Ships would land on the British shore
and an army of cousins
would march out to make war.
Those who hide in shadows,
would find themselves bathed in the light
of their own people’s torches
who have turned out to fight
now what they have a chance
to protect their daughters and wives
from the foreign molesters
who would ruin their lives.
How proudly they would stand,
to return law to the lawless,
those noble sons of Glyndŵr,
of St. George and Wallace!

If I were a rich man,
my money would flow to good men
to fund their liberation,
that they be free again.   
And should the crown object,
I would ask why they should speak now?
When silence has been their rule
in spite of ancient vow
to protect their people,
from foreign conquest and such rot?
No! Cast them down! Call: “Arthur!”
“Return for Camelot!”

If I were a rich man…
If only I were a rich man…

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Relief

Relief 

A cool Breeze blowing,
Leaves fade into new colors,
fall is coming soon...

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

The Lie

 The Lie

Her small smile tries
to hide the pain,
and yet her eyes,
they betray her…
for there to see
for those who seek
a misery
buried deep down.

What man can break
through many walls
and as prize take
her broken heart?

One of virtue,
and honor true
to see it through
to mend her love.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Birthday

Birthday

I will right my ship,
No longer bailing water,
I WILL sail again.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Remember

Remember

Betrayal's dagger
can only strike from behind,
held in a friend’s hand.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

 

Therapy

Charlie turned on to McGary St. He didn’t really have anywhere specific to drive, he was just driving.

He had Hank jr. cranked up on his radio, and his windows down with the air conditioner on. While his day had started crappy, this was improving it. This was more therapeutic and effective to deal with his stressors than any plans or processes that some over paid counselor could come up with.

Half-way down the block, near the bus terminal, a couple men decided to cut across the road. One saw Charlie coming and jogged across the lane so that he wasn’t in the way. The other made eye contact and threw his arms out as he slowed down.

He looked every bit like a walking cliché of a junkie. Barley shaved hair, sickly pasty skin even in the sun, scabs, and a beard that just didn’t seem like it could grow. Sporadic shitty tattoos, including a large red and black one on his arm that Charlie could just make out as “Judgeless”.

Charlie almost felt a pang of pity.

 “What?” he shouted at Charlie. “I said WHAT, mother fucker?”

The pang of pity disappeared.

Charlie, forced to a crawl in order to pass him, leaned out his window, and pointed up the street to where the crosswalk was.

“You’re outta pocket, Man,” Charlie said. “You’re supposed to use the crosswalk so that you don’t bounce off a hood.”

“The fuck you gonna do, boy?” the man sneered. “Get on outta that truck and teach me the law? Try it! Try it!"

Charlie laughed and shook his head. As he started to drive away, the man spat on the back of his truck.

“Ok,” Charlie mumbled. “Ok.”

He drove a block up and turned the corner. Finding a parking spot, he got out and pulled off his hoodie. He threw on his flannel jacket from his passenger seat, his ballcap and sunglasses, and started walking back towards the bus station.

On principle, he crossed at the crosswalk, but his eyes were scanning the people milling around at the terminal. Half of them looked lost, listless, or strung out. The other half looked terrified that the others would approach them.

Then Charlie spotted him. He was standing off by the corner of the bus terminal by the sidewalk and some bushes with the man he had crossed the road with. He was smoking a cigarette and laughing, presumably about his theatrics in the middle of the street.

At first, Charlie wasn’t sure, but after a moment of staring, Charlie knew it was the guy. The blonde stubble on top of his head revealing inevitable impending balding, the patchy face hair that looked more like mange than a beard, and the scabs on the side of his face hinting at a more serious addiction that the cigarette he was currently smoking. The “Judgeless” tattoo on his right arm was the clincher, however. It was Meth Man.

Charlie slowed down and looked around. Everyone seemed caught up in their own little world, and the cameras were all pointed towards the terminal area, not out towards the street or edges of the lot.

Perfect.

He was an arm reach away now.

“Hey, got a smoke?” Charlie asked.

As the man turned, Charlie swung, connecting true with the joint of the man’s jaw. He fell sideways into the bush. Charlie grabbed the man’s leg and dragged him from where he landed. The bush and the rocks beneath him scratched at his skin as Charlie pulled him out and onto the dirt beside the sidewalk.

Charlie looked over at the other man. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.

The man threw his arms up and backed away, eyes wide.

Charlie knelt beside Meth Man, who didn’t even attempt to stand or fight, but was now cradling his face and screaming.

“Crosswalk,” Charlie said loudly. 

Meth Man kept screaming, so Charlie gave his face a slap. “Hey, shut up and focus on me.”

The man’s screaming turned into moans of agony, but he was staring straight at Charlie with his bloodshot eyes that seemed filled with equal parts hatred and tears from the pain. 

“Good,” Charlie said. “Now, the next time you cross a road, use the crosswalk. And if you ever, and I mean ever, get the gumption to spit on a man’s truck again…”

Charlie leaned in and drew his fist back. The man flinched and pulled his arms over his head.

“…reconsider that gumption.” Charlie said. Instead of punching, Charlie patted the man’s shoulder.

 As he stoof up looked around, leaving Meth Man holding his head in the dust at his feet. Meth Man’s friend was still wide eyed and holding his hands up like he was in a hold up scene from a movie.  No one else was even looking their way. Most were too busy staring at their phones or nodding off from whatever substance was in their system.

He dusted his jeans and walked back the way he had come. His hand hurting like all get out, but otherwise, he felt great.

Best Therapy session in a long time, he thought to himself as he waited for the crosswalk light to change. 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Celoj

 Celoj

Mi provas lerni

la lingvo Esperanto

lerni aliajn.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Lundo

 Lundo

Ho, kia honto!
Estas tre bela tago,
Sed, mi laboras!

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Authors note: Readers of the following poem should note that is a sort of reflection of WB Yeats poem 'The Second Coming'. While mirrored in its composition, it also seeks to be a continuation of his narrative,  an updated answer to his question of what beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born...

A New Dawn

The widening gyre continues to turn,
The falcon continues without concern,
Ruins more common, the center falters,
society sprawls upon dark altars,
Hateful, their bloody thirst can’t be sufficed,
our innocents stolen as sacrifice;
Our potential heroes refuse to act
for fear their families will be attacked.

Surely our people will wake and notice,
Surely a New Dawn will burn the lotus.
A New Dawn! I can barely pen the words
without visions of that dark silhouette:
the bloody lion of a bloody god
demanding blood tribute without mercy,
moving to and fro with its dark purpose;
Sunbirds drowning en mass in its shadows.
Robes attempt to veil our eyes, but we know
those centuries of calculated lies
we were force-fed with that desert lotus
for this dark hour of culmination:
The foul desert beast set loose on the world. 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Shadows

Shadows

How they swirl around

To fill my thoughts with terror
That I'm losing hold. 

Suppress

Suppress

Breathe in and Breathe out
this can't control you
if you control it. 

Morning Elixir

Morning Elixir

A lemon juice shot,
Potassium, Salt, and water...
Stir, then down the hatch!

August

 Black marker. 
          One swipe.
Another day gone. 
Black marker. 
          One swipe.
Another day gone. 
Black marker. 
          One swipe.
Tear off the sheet. 
I stare at the paper, 
          Covered in one black swipe at a time
Before crumbling it and throwing it away. 
I stare at the new sheet. 
         No swipes, no black, 
But full of darkness in its own right. 
A new sheet for a new month
          Last month trashed...underutilized...
Joy, fun, memories,
         Intended,  postponed, dreamt of...
Swiped away with each day...
This new sheet...
         Fresh...pure...promising...
Marks the new year for me...
         Marks another year gone
Lost to complacency and distraction....
         But...perhaps...as I notice: another chance?

Aurora

 Aurora

Hail to Aurora,
who has risen in the east
to grace us with light!

DC Graffiti

 

DC Graffiti

“You’re making the loops too small,” Danny whispered. “No one is gonna be able to read that!”

“You don’t like how I paint, get your ass over here and do it,” Gavin hissed back. “Otherwise, just keep your eyes open for scouts.”

Danny shook his head as he looked at Gavin’s letter C.

“Too small,” he muttered as he looked back out of the alley to the main road.

Nothing was quite the same since the federalization of the city. While it had been welcomed at first, it turned into a nightmare of providing documentation just to get through “criminal check points” on a day-to-day basis. Danny’s dad had refused once, video taping the interaction for social media as proof of the unconstitutional actions of the troops.

He was swiftly detained and had been in detainment ever since. Three months later, neither Danny nor his mother were able to talk to him or even get a lawyer to him. “Security reasons” being the cited reason by those who would actually talk to his mother. The video had disappeared with the phone and was never uploaded.

Gavin’s old man just disappeared one night on his way back from work. No one talks to Gavin, being a minor, and since his dad was his sole parent, Gavin lived with Danny now. While his mother was distracted with overtime now that his dad was “detained”, it left Danny and Gavin some time to work with the resistance.

Mostly other Teens who snuck out on various nights to tag buildings and bridges with messages of discontent over the military occupation of their city. Danny looked back at the small c loops in “Occupied” as Gavin stepped back to admire his work.

“Loops are too small,” Danny whispered again.

“Shut up about the loops,” Gavin said. “We got it done. Let’s go.”

“Stop where you are!”

They both jumped and looked around, pressing themselves against the alley wall. 

“Stop now, or we’ll be forced to shoot!”

“We aren’t moving!” Danny tried to shout. His voice, however, seemed lost somewhere between his throat and his mouth. All that came out was an squeaky yet guttural croak that sounded more like a dying frog than a boy’s voice.

He didn’t have a chance to try again when the shots rang out. A body slammed onto the pavement in front of the alley way and skidded a bit before coming to a halt. Something metallic rolled from the body towards them and stopped against Danny’s foot.

Danny grew cold and tried to fight back the bile that surged into his mouth.

He lost the fight.

Danny lurched over and vomited all over what was at his feet.

“It’s paint,” he said spitting out the remnants of his vomit.

“Is that Clark?” Gavin whispered. He took a step towards the body.

Danny looked at the face. It was a vacant look in newly dead eyes that somehow seemed to be staring at him accusingly.  

“We have to go!” Danny hissed. He pulled Gavin’s arm just as Gavin had started to walk towards Clark.

The approaching footfalls of others registered in his ears, and it snapped his mind back from Clark’s face. Gavin dropped his own paint and ran as hard as he could.

The next few blocks would be a blur that neither of them would remember for a night that neither of them would forget.

***

The soldiers began setting up a small perimeter around the body to ensure no one could get close to it.

“Another kid?”

“They didn’t know it was a kid, Sarge,” a soldier beside him replied. “They saw a glint from the can and thought it was a weapon.”

“Looks like there were more down this alley,” came a call behind them. The Sergeant looked towards where the soldier was shining his light from the cans of paint, the vomit and then up to the graffiti.

“Do the C’s look weird?” the soldier asked. “Do you think its code for something?”

“Who knows?” the Sergeant replied.  He turned back to the body at his feet. “Let’s focus on saving our asses on this issue first, and then we’ll figure out your conspiracy theory on another day.”

“I dunno. I think it’s the small loop of the Cs that are throwing me,” the soldier continued. “They’re too small, don’t you think?”

The Sergeant sighed as he stared at the boy lying at his feet.

“Yeah. A lot of things are too small lately,” he muttered to himself.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

 

A MAGA purist speaks out

They come to Indiana, but who cares

other than all the faux MAGA red hats,

who care more about Israel’s affairs

than rooting out the traitors and the rats

who rub elbows with the Pedo elite,

hoping for scraps that fall off the table

as they just lay there, purring at their feet

pretending Epstein’s list is some fable!

A political myth meant to disrupt,

to spread chaos amongst the rank and file,

as they pray that their own are not corrupt…

May the Gods damn their eyes, since they shut them

against horrors committed on our youth,

choosing instead to insult and condemn

Americans who are seeking the truth.

Damn their ears, since they will not hear reason,

screaming instead that we are the traitors,

as though demanding justice is treason

and that we are merely trouble makers

who fell for some propaganda and lies

and they insult us, and they laugh and sneer

and do their very best to ostracize

MAGA purists and silence us through fear.

Damn their forked tongues, as they spin their tall tales

trying to pull the wool over our eyes,

even though we see clearly through those veils,

pitying them as they buy their own lies.

Damn their hearts, which have already turned cold,

frozen by the temptation of power:

for the sake of office, they’ll do as told

and stand by as the elite devour

the pure innocence of child after child

for their own evil rites and dark pleasure.

Truly, we can no more be reconciled

by any plan or desperate measure.

When did saving the kids take a back seat

to running protection for the elite,

to laying worshipfully at the feet

of those who wantonly peddle deceit,

demanding to open our mouths to eat,

the absolute bullshit their own mouths excrete?

I don’t care what they say, I want that list,

the one they themselves were demanding

and yet now are claiming doesn’t exist.

Others may sit, I will remain standing.

As a father, I cannot just sit by

and allow this crime to fade day by day,

and so I will continue to decry,

their attempts to make it all go away.

This betrayal will not be forgotten,

and though there are many who may doubt it:

all the fruit on the tree that is rotten,

those who covered it up or allowed it

will one day be revealed for what they are,

and with their darkness brought into the light

so then in a blink, fall like a star…

True Americans will cheer in delight,

with passionate joy that is unreserved

when Justice is honored, and Vengeance served.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Trust

Trust

Like an ice-cream cone, 
neglected in a child's hand,
It all melts away...

Happy?

Birds sing in the trees
all happily unaware
without consciousness

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Disappointing

 Disappointing

A punch to the gut:
the job will disrupt far more
than it stands to fix.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Clean Fun

 Betsy left the office crying. Everything that could have gone wrong in that interview did go wrong, and it was the first time an interviewer had told her during the interview that they would be going with other candidates. 

As she walked through the lobby, just before the escalators, she saw a janitor struggling to move a step large ladder by himself. She paused, and tears still in her eyes, picked up one side of the step ladder and waited for him to take it in the direction he needed to take it. 

The man looked at her for a moment, and then moved the ladder over to just under a light fixture that was slowly blinking its light.

After setting the ladder in place, he turned to her. 

“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said. “But why would you help me?”

“Well,” Betsy shrugged. “I dunno. I was always told to treat the janitor the same as you would a CEO, and you just looked like you needed some help.”

“You believe that, do you?” He asked.

“Yes,” Betsy replied. She gave him a small smile. “Besides, I am having a bad day, so I may as well help someone else before they have a bad day.”

“What is your name?” 

“Betsy.”

“Well, Betsy, I’m Joe,” he said. “As it happens, I am the CEO of this company. I have done this test on every single applicant that has come through today, and you are the only one who stopped to help me!”

“Really?” She sniffled, and wiped at her eyes.

Joe gave her a warm smile and patted her shoulder. 

“Really,” he said softly. “I know from your tears that you think you didn’t do so well, but I make the final call on all hires. I need more people like you on my team. I want you here tomorrow when these doors open at six AM to start the first day of your new career! Can you do that?”

Betsy beamed at him, and grabbed at his hand.

“Yes! Yes!” She enthusiastically shook his whole arm. “I will be here! Thank you, sir!”

Joe watched as she walked quickly over to the escalator and went down, before she reached the bottom, she turned to wave at him. 

She raised her cellphone to her ear, he could just barely hear her voice. “I got it! You will never believe…”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

Joe turned to see Dayle standing there with more light bulbs. He grinned. 

“That makes three this quarter,” Joe said. 

“The last guy almost got wasted by Security when he kept demanding to see the CEO who hired him for watering a plant.”

“First off, it was the plastic ferns over by the elevators, Dayle," Joe said. "Besides, doesn’t it piss you off that they act like we are some sort of untouchables who deserve public displays of compassion to make themselves feel better?”

“I don’t think about it,” Dayle said as he climbed the ladder. “I try to just do my job and go home.”

“Well, it pisses me off,” Joe said. “Besides, she touched my ladder.”

“Well, I am off tomorrow, so if there is another scene like last time, try to catch it on video for me and let me know what happens.”

Joe chuckled and was about to reply when he felt a tap on the shoulder. 

Joe looked at his shoulder before turning to see a man in a suit looking up at Dayle opening the light fixture. 

“You need any help with that?”

Joe smiled. “What is your name?” 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved