Mr. Mighty saw life through a tube. He saw that the tube was made of cardboard. He saw, once, at seven years old, the beauty of leaves in the New England sunlight.
Mr. Mighty saw clouds. He saw that, if he pretended that there were no clouds, then there were no clouds. Mr. Mighty saw the summer sky like that, as a kid.
Mr. Mighty saw that college was not all it was cracked up to be. On a practice field, once, he saw a football come straight for his nose. Mr. Mighty saw it was best to take it like a man. Mr. Mighty saw stars.
He saw that all of life's needs were already taken care of. He saw that this truth, rather than being the best luxury in the world, made life unbearable.
He looked around and saw that the only goals left were impossible ones. Mr. Mighty saw that booze made woozy this understanding.
Mr. Mighty played with the carboard tube . . . as he moved it he saw different things. He saw Yale. He saw the Air Force -- National Guard version. He saw a quarter in his pants-cuff.
He saw that people liked him, for some reason. He saw the smiles on their faces. Moving the tube up a bit, he saw worrisome eyes. He saw that it was better to look down at the smile.
He saw a world map. He saw evil men. He saw -- no, not a thousand points of light -- he saw one point of light, in a mirror.
Mr. Mighty saw oil-wells. He saw that it was easy to make money on his own. Baseball fields, oil wells, people who smiled: he saw them one by one through the tube.
He saw the White House, one day. Mr. Mighty saw the Oval Office. He saw that, if you look through a tube at a camera lens, you saw only your smile in the reflection.
Mr. Mighty saw that he was mighty. He saw a nice man who told him so. He saw that Mr. Cheney's -- never mind who that is -- smile looked kind of odd through the tube, but better than the eyes, and so Mr. Mighty kept the tube down.
He saw the towers come down -- well, no he didn't. He saw, instead, the reflection of children's faces in the polished leather of his shoes. He saw that he was now Mr. Mighty in the faces of those children.
Later, Mr. Mighty saw his scrambled eggs. He saw some on his chin. Mr. Mighty saw God, after all. The children in his shoes saw God, too, but not the scrambled eggs.
He saw nothing strange in starting a nuclear war. Mr. Mighty saw Mr. Mighty. He saw that . . . see this? . . . there was power in the expression of power; and in the expression of power, power. He saw that people were excuberent when he said, "Freedom."
In Heaven, Mr. Mighty saw that his cardboard tube was a pinewood box in minuature. He saw all the people of the world inside. Mr. Mighty buried the box in a cloud, and he saw that, without the tube (since it was buried in a cloud), everything was visable all at once. He saw the big picture. Mr. Mighty's eyes blurred not from alchohol, but tears . . . he saw, in heaven, how weak was Mr. Mighty.