For the first time in a long time, Michael was nervous. He’d been writing speeches for months, and this was finally his chance to prove himself as a competent public speaker, on top of it all. He’d been pushing to be allowed to deliver the words that he, himself, wrote... but working at the ministry, he had to pay his dues. He had to wait. Well, until today. With the designated speaker coming down with a nasty case of dragon pox, who else knew the speech the way Michael did? Who else would be able to deliver it? He’d been told merely a day in advance that this was his chance to get his foot in. If he did a good job, he could expect more work in the future. If he botched this, he could be back to writing and getting coffee indefinitely. It was worth it, though. Michael had faith in himself.
Words came easy to Michael. Speaking came easy. Attention came easy. After all of the bullying he’d overcome, after living and thriving after the horrible things he did to himself during the war, Michael considered himself a fighter. He’d be able to handle this and he’d do it well. He was an Evans. Politics ran in his blood. Public speaking, campaign... he was not just familiar with it, but comfortable, also. What made him nervous wasn’t the task so much as what it meant for him. It would be great to accomplish this step. He’d be one of the quickest ever to be promoted, and that thought made him quite a bit proud.
He’d really been working for weeks on this speech. A ministry executive was stepping down from a position he’d held for ages, partly due to the stress of the ministry reorganization. Unknown to many, though not lost on Michael, the man, Charles Hunt, had been involved in one too many blood-related scandals in the past few years, and the internal affairs office was closing in on him. Michael had no delusions about the true cause of the man’s retirement. He was pressured to resign or risk being fired, but none of that mattered. As far as the population was concerned, and as far as Michael was concerned this man shit gold. He was a philanthropist, a revolutionary, and a hard worker who started from humble beginnings and worked his way up with his bare hands.
That was what the speech said, anyway. It tactfully left out the scheming, the lies, and the backstabbing, the money under the table to cover up the mysterious muggle corpses he’d found his friends linked to. Wasn’t that just the best thing? For those with money and power, they could do no wrong. There was no jail time for people like them. It was politics and nothing else. For those smart enough to bow out when they were caught.... Michael had no delusions that Hunt would sit on his hefty pension for the rest of his life, and consider it a life well-lived. It was wrong, and to some might have been an outrage. To Michael, though, it was true humor. It was laughable the idiotic things people did and got away with. People, in general, were jokes and nothing more.
Unsurprisingly, Michael found his speech met with applause and acceptance. He didn’t stumble over words or miss out. For a moment, he found himself going off-script, but he made his way back to the point in the end and thought that, perhaps, his performance had been better than the original, anyway. It felt more genuine. Or, well, it seemed that way. He shook hands with his boss when he stepped down off the podium, then went around back. He could see the reporters already heading in his direction, but he’d already said all that he was authorized to say, let them talk among themselves. He’d given more than enough for them to work with, he was certain.
Michael found himself loosening his tie almost immediately after getting backstage. He couldn’t change into jeans and a t-shirt yet, but he could loosen up a little bit. He gathered up his stuff and started to head out for the night, pausing just long enough to light up a cigarette behind the building. He let himself savor the moment. This was a success, Mikey-boy. You done good.
