Utopia.

  Dystopia.

  A single syllable is the only difference between the two, such a small difference. I’ve created a man, in my opinion. Not a hero, not a villain, just a man. He was inspired by characters in history, with all their shades of gray, and so he, too, had himself shades of gray. His good and evil. If I ever do decide to write the story, it could go either way for him. Maybe my goal is to make him so realistic that different people will have different views of the man. I want to be unbiased, but I can’t be, considering he’s my own creation.

  As I write through these entries into this blog, my mind bubbles and conjures images of all the headspace I have been in throughout the years. All the little plot paths I tested out and ultimately decided for or against. There’s a great many versions of Victor Graves. I’m trying to paint the broad strokes at this point, though.

  Trillionaire.

  In today’s economy? Yes. He becomes a trillionaire. The world’s first. He becomes it over his lifetime, of course. It started out with the influx of cash from his dead parents. Or the bank robbery. I’m thinking 50k for that right now. Just enough for him to build his little video game that he and his girlfriend are making. Minecraft. He needs a website to host it on, of course, and a means of distribution. And some camera equipment for his little YouTube channel. A powerful computer. He doesn’t need space, though. They start out in Gloriana’s parent’s basement.

  Have I mentioned that Gloriana’s parents took him in when he was orphaned? Her parents were his parents’ best friends, after all. Sometimes Gloriana has a single mother, other times not. And even sometimes more they’re both orphans and meet in the foster care system. But for today, at this moment in time, he lives with Gloriana and her parents. And they are, lets say, working class or lower middle class. Enough for a house with a small basement. Enough to enrich the lives of their children in what little meager ways they can. Books, a computer, a place to develop hobbies and interests, a subscription or two to World of Warcraft.

  It’s a happy family. Remember, this is a fantasy, after all. Happy families can exist in fantasies. Not everything has to be so dramatic all the time. Victor talks it up big about Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan and Julius and Augustus Caesar. How he’s going to change the world. How he’ll become president.

  “Yes, yes, Vicky. We’ve heard it before. When though?”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “I’ve already begun,” he says with a smirk.

  He talks, too, about marrying Gloriana. The parents couldn’t be happier. It’s an already decided fact while they were still toddlers, after all. Victor proposed to her with a ring pop, which she still has up to the day she and him are euthanized.

  But, back to Minecraft. Back to becoming a trillionaire. He does things much like Notch did them, all the way up to selling to Microsoft to the tune of two and half billion dollars. Maybe a little more in Victor’s case, as his Minecraft was far more fantastical. Victor himself didn’t realize it when he was creating it, but the author of his thoughts (me) had the benefit of hindsight when he made his little video game.

  Unlike Notch, this becoming a billionaire can’t happen in 2014. Being just 14 years old is far too young for the suspension of disbelief. Minecraft started development when they were considerably young and progressed through his teen years. Maybe he was fifteen or sixteen when he sold it? Old enough to drop out of high school, which he and Gloriana both did, much to the concern of their parents.

  Is that too unrealistic? Maybe we should go back to a millennial Victor Graves. He graduates high school in 2008 and has the same time table as Notch, becoming a billionaire at 24 in 2014. Victor was originally a millennial, after all. That’s what I am and he was originally a fantastical version of myself. As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve fallen into the same trap that older authors make: they want young protagonists. Ones full of life and possibilities.

  Regardless, though, he becomes a billionaire. He was a millionaire first with just the raw sales of the game during his time when he was doing the talk show circuit. When he became a millionaire, he had a gold tooth installed in his mouth. When he became a billionaire, he had a diamond embedded in that tooth. He’s a casual fan of body modification. He’s got a Minecraft tattoo, too, so he can always remember what he made.

  So now he’s a billionaire, he marked that off of his Alexander the Great checklist. A solid first step. Not too shabby. So, what should he do with the money? What’s the next step? How does he acquire more money? Or is money really the goal? It seems to be that way in today’s world, after all. Billionaires control everything. They are this age’s kings and princes, aren’t they?

  Being a billionaire is nice, Victor thinks, but only as a means to an end. Money isn’t the whole story. There’s only one real power in the world someone can harvest, and it’s not money, it’s People Power. Money is just a means of accessing People Power. Pay some people to do something and they do it for you. People Power. Move mountains, conquer nations. It’s all People Power. How do you get it? Money’s not the only way you can get someone to do something for you.

  You could always just ask them to do stuff for you. For free.

  Work for free? That’s a tough sell. Luckily Victor is quite charismatic and charming. That, and he knows one thing, people love to work for free. They do it all the time. It’s called having a hobby. The main thing with a hobby is that it’s just got to be fun. And Victor knows how to have some fun.

  That’s another 1000 words. I’ll see you later.