The Stain in the Crowd
There is nothing more blinding than uniform reverence — except its absence.
When I walked through the gate, I expected nothing but what I had earned: bowed heads, lowered eyes, mouths silent in my presence.
And yet, there he stood.
Not kneeling.
Not nodding.
Not even blinking.
He didn’t curse. He didn’t spit.
He just looked at me as if I were… ordinary.
As if he were more than me.
“I Am a Jew”
I sent word to the palace guard.
“Who is this man? Why does he not obey?”
The answer came back like a slap wrapped in silk.
“He is a Jew. His name is Mordecai.”
That was all. No explanation.
As if that was the explanation.
“I am a Jew” — that’s what he told them.
Three words that reeked of defiance.
Of ancient grudges.
Of veiled superiority dressed as piety.
I felt it immediately.
This wasn’t personal — yet it was.
It wasn’t political — yet it would be.
It was ancestral. Tribal. Old.
He stood for everything that once crushed Agag beneath Israel’s feet.
And now?
I would return the favor.
One Man Is Never Just One Man
I could have ordered his death.
A quick dagger. A staged accident. A forgotten footnote in the annals of Persian record.
But one man is never just one man.
One defiance becomes a movement. One refusal becomes tradition.
And Jews — they remember.
They sing of deliverance in exile.
They recite their victories while living under foreign kings.
They survive — even when slaughtered.
I needed to extinguish more than a man.
I needed to erase a presence.
The Perfect Poison: Fear
But how do you kill a people… legally?
You don’t start with blood. You start with suspicion.
You don’t swing the sword. You whisper in the right ears.
I waited.
I watched.
And I schemed.
There’s a reason men like me rise.
We don’t waste rage.
We refine it.
Casting the Pur
My advisers offered me the idea — casting the pur, the lot. It’s what the priests do when they seek divine timing. But I? I used it to mock their God.
We cast the lots to choose the date of their destruction. Month by month the stones rolled. Until they stopped.
Adar.
The last month. Perfect.
Give them time to stew in dread. To rot in the knowledge of what was coming.
I smiled.
And began to write.
Deception with a Seal
Xerxes is a man of appetite, not details.
I approached him with care and charm.
“There is a people,” I said, “scattered and different.
They follow their own laws. They refuse ours.
They are dangerous to your peace, your rule, your name.”
And then I paused.
Just long enough for him to imagine the problem.
Just long enough for fear to settle.
He waved a hand.
Removed his ring.
Signed our extinction with indifference.
He never asked for their names.
He never asked where they lived.
He just said, “Do as you please.”
I had the king’s seal.
I had the date.
I had the plan.
The Seed Was Planted
The scribes wrote. The messengers rode.
Every province received the same message:
Kill the Jews. On the thirteenth day of Adar. Take their property. Spare no one.
And then, like nothing had happened, the king and I sat down to drink.
