Sophie lived in a quaint little village named Transtopia tucked away in a beautiful river valley nestled in a forgotten corner of the country of Arimace.
The residents of Transtopia had little to spare, but any visitor was greeted with warm smiles and invitations to dinner. Transtopians knew intimately how poverty can cramp belly and spirit; they opened their hearts and homes to spare others the pains they lived with. Most visitors to Transtopia became permanent residents, not because of the love they were greeted with but because it was in their nature to feel more at home in a sleepy little village than a bustling city square.
Each year, Sophie left Transtopia to serve as its representative at the central council meeting held to decide the direction of Arimace. The council discussed questions like "how shall we distribute this year's harvest?" and "what shall we do about the bandits on our roads?" It even dealt with issues that Sophie felt should really have been raised elsewhere, like "what is the right way to pray to the gods?" and "how shall we cope with our daughters' impurity?" At the end of the council session, a vote was taken to select a king tasked to carry out their decisions for the year.
Sophie's charge as representative of Transtopia had been the same every year that she could remember: her neighbors looked to her with worry in their eyes and asked that she convince the council to repair their dam, the only structure that stood between Transtopia and the great lake above. It was in bad repair, and the poor Transtopians could not afford to fix it, for all the sweat of their brows was poured into feeding themselves and their wayward travelers. Cracks were spread throughout, and at unpredictable intervals parts of the wall would burst, the new gush added to the flow of the river flooding the homes and fields of the unfortunate Transtopians who lived nearest it. The number of their neighbors lost to these floods was increasing every year, and it was feared that the dam would one day crumble completely and destroy their fair village and everyone in it.
Sophie had been able to secure less and less funding for the dam each year. She was increasingly desperate to save her village; her neighbors were right, and it was inevitable that it would soon be destroyed. But the council ignored her pleas and grumbled that the Transtopians were a greedy, untrustworthy bunch, undeserving of their largesse. It was even intimated that the travelers who regularly disappeared there did so because the simple village folk had unnatural relations with them that twisted their minds. In an alarming new development, the meanest councilors had gone so far as to move to destroy the dam with dynamite and be done with the troublesome village once and for all.
Sophie's friends on the council, preoccupied though they were with the concerns of the towns and cities they represented, sometimes spared the time to add their voices to her own. They never supported her request for enough funds to fix the dam completely, as they felt she asked too much of them, and instead endorsed partial repair --- enough to keep the cracks from spreading further, but not to eliminate them completely. Sophie tried not to resent this, as it was after all better than nothing, and she took heart knowing her friends would at least never speak out against her --- much less join the growing chorus for dynamite.
Today's meeting had only just begun when it was interrupted by a breathless messenger from Transtopia. Panting, he informed the council that the dam had sprung a new leak, and in the ensuing flood, a girl of only 16 had drowned. Her distraught loved ones had bade the messenger describe her to the council, that they might remember her in their hearts and be moved to prevent another tragedy. When he had caught his breath, he held up an image of her likeness and told the council of her endearing personality, her sharp mind and artistic soul, her hopes and dreams for the future, and of the friends and family who had loved her. Sophie took in his message and fought to dam her tears. She hadn't known May, but she had known many like her, the precious flowers of her village killed by rising waters before they could grow into full bloom.
Sophie glanced around at her colleagues while he was speaking. She caught the glisten of tears in the eyes of a few of her friends, but most were trying to ignore the messenger, looking at the ceiling and shuffling their papers. The dynamite party were listening, though. Sophie saw no wetness in their eyes; a few were even smiling. One of them, a jackal named Littleman, jeered "good riddance!"
Hearing this, the dam buckled. Water spilled freely from Sophie's eyes as a cold damp rage overtook her. She was carried away by a current of pain that blurred her thoughts and clenched her teeth. She found she had leapt from her seat and pounded her fists on the table. "I move that we expel Mr. Littleman from our proceedings for breech of decorum! And we must fund the full repair of the Transtopian dam before it is too late!"
Littleman smirked at her. There was a silence as Sophie waited for her friends to second the motion, but nobody did. She let forth a guttural cry of animal anger, not at the noisome bully but at the rest of the council who refused to meet her eyes. Sophie stormed from the chamber, too shocked by their callousness to continue her duties.
That evening, Sophie's friends gathered together and knocked on her door. She opened it and invited them inside, a wellspring of relief opening inside her. They must have realized their error and come to apologize and pledge their support.
One of their leaders, a lady named Actor, was the first to speak. "Sophie, we understand the dam is close to your heart, but you must control your outbursts. You made us all look bad. If you continue like this, nobody will take your side. Let the issue lie for a time." Her words struck Sophie like a blow. The nodding faces of those she had counted as friends, even the ones who had been moved by the messenger's tale, fell on her like a blacksmith's hammer.
Stunned into silence, Sophie said nothing. Actor took this as encouragement and smiled, patting her hand gently. "Take heart, Sophie. If we work together we can still stop the dynamite faction." Well, that was something. Sophie nodded numbly and tried to force herself to smile back; it came out a sickly grimace. "I will... endeavor to greater politeness, Ms. Actor, that I might secure our friendship and your support."
Satisfied, the people she thought were her friends filed out of the room. Sophie shook her head and resolved to redouble her efforts the next day. Maybe there was something to what Actor had said. If gentle words were what it took to save her home, she would grit her teeth and spit them out.
Sophie withdrew her motion the following day and began a charm offensive against her former friends. She spent the next week of meetings --- they always dragged on far too long --- speaking out in their support with all the grace she could muster. She spoke eloquently of the urgency of repairing the roads in the city Actor represented. She voted to distribute a greater portion of the year's harvest to Actor's nodding cronies. She even apologized to Littleman for her motion to expel him, the blood churning in her ears like whirlpools so she could barely hear herself speak.
More messengers arrived from Transtopia with news of more deaths, which the council continued to ignore. The dynamite faction grew, as did the volume of their voices. When the fiftieth messenger arrived, he could barely be heard over their raucous laughter. It was against this background music that Sophie learned she had lost a dear friend named Rani.
Soon it would be time for the council to select a new king. Each candidate was granted the floor to outline why they could be trusted to carry out the council's will and how they would approach issues that had not yet been decided. Sophie watched intently, ears trained for any mention of Transtopia. She did not have to wait long, for Littleman was the first to speak. He cleared his throat and locked eyes with her as he began.
"The most urgent matter facing this council is Transtopia. It has been a thorn in our side for far too long. Dynamite, I say, dynamite! We must destroy their accursed dam and drown the lot of them. We will wash their ugly, stinking village away with unstoppable purifying force. When they have been eradicated, we can repurpose their hideous, useless valley --- more of a cleft in the rock, really --- as a cesspit. I will pledge 20% of each year's harvest to new roads that we might transport all of Arimace's night soil there to be disposed of."
He went on, and on, and on, but Sophie didn't hear. She trembled, and thought of May, and Rani, and the seventy-five other Transtopians who had died since she had left on her council journey. Littleman was only a boil on the face of their council, beneath her contempt; she could not lance him. She thought she had won over most of her friends and would hold fast to that. It was all that mattered.
At length, the excrescence returned to his seat to cheers and applause from his pig friends. Sophie perked up as Actor took the podium; she would applaud every word if it would save her town. The ember of hope in her belly glowed a little brighter. She knew Actor had a good chance of beating Littleman, whose meaty voice repelled people of sound mind.
Actor was a strong speaker and came across as thoughtful and upstanding. Sophie did not have to force herself to clap, as she agreed with most of her ideas, and her heart was gladdened by the bulwark she might form against Littleman and his dynamiters. Hearing her, Sophie remembered why she had thought of her as a friend before the revealing night in her room. Maybe she had overreacted.
"... and when it comes to the Transtopia problem," Actor continued, as Sophie hung on her words, "my opponent Mr. Littleman seeks to waste our harvest on a showy use of dynamite and create an unsanitary cesspit. If you elect me as your new king, I will instead send a small detachment of artisans to drill holes in the dam at strategic points, ensuring it will crumble of its own accord within the year. This slower course will give the people of Transtopia --- offensive though they might be, they are still people --- time to evacuate, if they have the means. When it is gone, we will turn the valley's new waterfall into a tourist attraction to raise more funds for Arimace, some of which might go toward the displaced refuse of its former village."
Sophie was aghast. Actor's plan for her village was no better than Littleman's, only spoken with more honey. Transtopia would still be destroyed. And then her false friends on the council --- even now clapping politely --- would elect Actor, or Littleman, or someone like them, at the next council. More helpless villages would be destroyed. Sophie did the only thing she could think of and interrupted the speech.
"Why do you seek to murder my people?" Sophie had to pitch her voice over the applause and it came out louder than she had intended. "Why would we, the good people of Arimace, want a murderess for our new king?"
Gasps went up all around her. Actor's face turned purple with rage at the interruption. "How dare you interrupt me, Tranny? We will not elevate the needs of your tiny village over the entire country. Have some sense."
Mutters of agreement went up all around her. A false friend leaned over to Sophie and hissed, "sit down, Sophie. You're making a fool of yourself. I don't agree with her plan, but you must see it's better than Littleman. If he's king, we will lose everything. Transtopia will be destroyed either way, but Littleman would also seek to turn my city into a dumping ground for opposing him. Do not betray us, your good friends, over such a small matter as your piddling village."
Hearing these words, Sophie was enlightened. An eerie calm stole over her. She bowed and left the room while Actor and her friends heaved angry, confused breaths in her wake.
That night, Sophie broke into Littleman's room while he was out carousing. She collected the sticks of dynamite hidden under his bed. Methodically, she connected their fuses together, then piled up the explosives in the center of the council chamber.
Sophie set off for home, a small grim smile on her face. Her eyes were dry and her heart was light. She did not look back as the council went up in flames. It was beneath her contempt.