1

The safety vest is bright orange, reflective strips catching the morning light. Size large, still creased from the package. The stop sign feels heavier than it should, metal pole cold against my palm.

7:25 AM. Five minutes before the first wave of students arrives.

I stand at the corner where Mrs. Henderson stood for six years, trying to look like I know what I’m doing. The intersection is exactly the same - crosswalk markings, yield signs, familiar suburban geography. But everything feels different from this angle.

Cars slow as they approach, drivers glancing at me with mild curiosity. The new guy. Some wave automatically, the way they waved at Mrs. Henderson, then seem to realize they don’t recognize me.

Mrs. Patterson walks her dog past the corner, does a double-take.

“Oh my,” she says, approaching with careful steps. “Are you filling in for Mrs. Henderson?”

“Temporarily,” I say.

“Such a shame about her accident. So sudden.” She shakes her head. “But how nice that they found someone local. Do you have children at the school?”

“Two. Jake and Sophie Richardson.”

“Of course! You’re Emma’s husband. The businessman.” She smiles. “Well, isn’t this wonderful. A parent helping out during a difficult time.”

The first students appear at the end of the block. Backpacks, lunch boxes, the scattered energy of Monday morning. I recognize some faces from school pickup, birthday parties, neighborhood gatherings.

Sophie emerges from a group of fifth-graders, sees me, stops walking.

“Dad?”

Her voice carries that particular eleven-year-old combination of confusion and mortification. Her friends cluster around her, whispering. One points at my vest.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I say, raising the stop sign as a car approaches. “Let’s get you across safely.”

She walks past me without making eye contact, her friends following with curious glances. I watch her disappear through the school entrance, shoulders slightly hunched.

More students arrive. Some recognize me, others don’t. I help them cross, hold up the sign, smile and wave like Mrs. Henderson used to do. The routine is simple enough. Stop traffic, ensure safe passage, repeat.

But I feel exposed. Visible. Like I’m performing in a play where everyone knows their lines except me.

Jake appears with his chess club friend Tommy. He waves cheerfully, unbothered by his father’s new role.

“Hey Dad! Cool vest!”

Tommy grins. “My mom says you’re helping out because Mrs. Henderson got hurt.”

“That’s right,” I say.

“Are you going to do this every day?”

“For now.”

Jake shrugs, satisfied with this explanation. They cross with the crowd, chattering about some chess tournament next week.

By 8:15, the last stragglers have made it inside. I stand alone at the corner, still holding the stop sign, watching normal traffic resume its normal flow.

My phone buzzes. Text from Emma: “How did it go?”

I type back: “Fine. Just helping out.”

But standing here in my bright orange vest, watching cars pass by drivers who now see me as part of the neighborhood infrastructure rather than a businessman, I realize something has shifted.

This isn’t temporary.

This is training. I am an apprentice.

2

William of Ockham, fourteenth-century Franciscan friar. Never actually said “the simplest explanation is usually the correct one,” but that’s how most people remember his principle. Entities should not be multiplied without necessity. Cut away the unnecessary. The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is typically right.

I learned it in graduate school, applied it to behavioral analysis for twenty years. When trying to understand why someone acts irrationally, start with the obvious before building elaborate theories. Fear before paranoia. Greed before ideology. Personal interest before grand conspiracy.

Standing at this corner every morning, watching the same cars, the same people, the same routines, I find myself returning to Ockham’s friar again and again.

What’s the simplest explanation?

Not the elegant one. Not the sophisticated one. Not the one that makes me feel important or demonstrates my analytical expertise.

The simplest one.

When you can’t understand what game you’re playing, maybe you’re not playing a game at all. Maybe you’re just being played.

When the rules seem to change without warning, maybe there were never any rules to begin with.

When rational analysis fails to produce rational conclusions, maybe the starting assumption—that the system operates rationally—is wrong.

Ockham’s razor cuts through complexity, strips away assumption, leaves only what can be directly observed.

I hold a stop sign.

Children cross the street.

Cars wait.

Everything else—the why, the how, the who—might be nothing more than my need to believe there’s meaning in meaninglessness.

Sometimes the simplest explanation.

3

Emma and I watch the evening news after dinner. Kids upstairs doing homework, kitchen cleaned, suburban Tuesday settling into its familiar rhythms.

“Unless I like the number, I’m against the number,” the congressman says on screen.

Emma reaches for the remote. “Politicians,” she sighs.

I watch congressional analysts being dismissed, budget experts called “fake,” decades of institutional knowledge swept aside. The Treasury Secretary compares career economists to a failed corporation. A former House Speaker questions their basic competence.

Emma finds a cooking show. “Much better,” she says.

But I keep thinking about the news.

About experts being replaced by people who give the right answers instead of accurate ones.

On the cooking show, a contestant burns his sauce. The celebrity chef tastes it, makes a face, delivers the verdict with theatrical disappointment.

“You’re eliminated,” he announces.

The contestant nods, accepts his fate, walks away from the kitchen while cameras capture his humiliation.

Emma watches happily. “I love these shows. So dramatic.”

I think about Ockham’s razor. About the simplest explanations usually being correct.

About the difference between dysfunction and design.

“Time for bed?” Emma asks during a commercial break.

“In a minute,” I say.

On screen, a new contestant steps forward, ready to prove their worth to an authority figure whose judgment is final, arbitrary, and absolute.

The show continues.

4

Another day begins. The last student disappears through the school entrance. I fold the stop sign, tuck it under my arm, walk toward my car parked on Maple Street where I’ve left it every morning for the past week.

White paper under the windshield wiper. Folded once, plain notebook paper, like something a kid might leave.

I look around. Normal suburban morning. Mrs. Patterson walking her dog two blocks away. A jogger with earbuds heading toward the park. No one paying attention to me or my car.

I lift the wiper, unfold the paper.

A crossword puzzle. Printed from a computer, standard grid, numbered squares. No title, no source attribution. Clues typed neatly below:

1 Across: “Elizabethan actor’s platform” (5 letters)

1 Down: “Medieval siege weapon” (8 letters)

3 Across: “Roman emperor, 54-68 AD” (4 letters)

5 Down: “Chess piece that moves in L-shapes” (6 letters)

7 Across: “Shakespearean villain” (4 letters)

Simple clues. Nothing unusual. The kind of puzzle you might find in any newspaper.

Except newspapers don’t deliver themselves to your windshield at exactly 8:20 AM while you’re standing 100 yards away helping children cross the street.

I get in my car, set the puzzle on the passenger seat. Start the engine, check my mirrors, pull away from the curb like I do every morning.

But my hands are shaking slightly.

Someone was here. Someone watched me work, timed their approach, knew exactly when I’d return to my car. Someone who wanted me to find this but didn’t want to be seen placing it.

At the red light on Elm Street, I glance at the puzzle again.

STAGE. CATAPULT. NERO. KNIGHT. IAGO.

Easy answers. Too easy for someone with my background. A middle schooler could solve this in five minutes.

So why does it feel like a test?

I fold the paper, put it in my glove compartment. Drive home thinking about puzzles and windshield wipers.

Emma’s car is gone when I arrive. She left for the hospital twenty minutes ago, right on schedule. Sophie and Jake are safely in their classrooms, discussing fractions and state capitals and other problems with clear solutions.

STAGE. CATAPULT. NERO. KNIGHT. IAGO.

5

I sit in my driveway, engine off, staring at nothing.

STAGE. CATAPULT. NERO. KNIGHT. IAGO.

Five words cycling through my mind like a broken song. Simple crossword answers that shouldn’t mean anything but feel like they mean everything.

A stage is where performances happen. Where actors play roles for unseen audiences.

A catapult breaks down walls. Siege warfare. Destruction from a distance.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Or maybe he didn’t fiddle at all. Maybe that’s just the story people tell afterward.

A knight moves in L-shapes. Never straight lines. Always approaching from unexpected angles.

Iago whispers poison. Manipulates from the shadows. Makes others dance while thinking they’re choosing their own steps.

I shake my head, start the car. This is what they want. My mind churning, seeking connections, finding meaning in random words. Classic overthinking, the kind that keeps analysts busy while the real work happens elsewhere.

Except the words won’t leave me alone.

Inside the house, I make coffee, check emails, review my afternoon schedule. Normal domestic routine. But the puzzle sits in my glove compartment like an unanswered question.

Emma calls during her lunch break.

“How was the crossing guard duty?” she asks.

“Fine. Same as always.”

“You sound distracted.”

“Just thinking about work.”

“What work? You’re helping kids cross the street.”

I pause, realizing I don’t have a good answer. “Other work. Consulting possibilities.”

“That’s good. I know this crossing guard thing is temporary.”

Is it? I’m not sure anymore.

After we hang up, I walk to my study, pull out a legal pad. Write the five words across the top of the page, stare at them.

All the world’s a stage. Shakespeare. Everything performance, everyone acting.

Medieval catapults required engineers, calculations, precise timing. Not random violence. Strategic destruction.

Nero probably didn’t fiddle. But the story persisted. Sometimes the performance becomes the truth.

Knights in chess protect the king. Unless they turn traitor.

Iago serves Othello faithfully. Until he doesn’t.

I tear off the page, crumple it up, throw it away.

Then I retrieve it from the wastebasket, smooth it out, read the words again.

STAGE. CATAPULT. NERO. KNIGHT. IAGO.

Someone knows I’ll think about this. Someone knows exactly how my mind works, what kind of puzzles will lodge in my thoughts and refuse to leave.

Someone who understands that the right five words can be more effective than any threat.

I fold the paper, put it in my desk drawer, next to my game and other mysteries I can’t solve.

But I keep thinking about stages and sieges and emperors who dance while everything burns.

6

2:30 AM. House silent except for the heating system. I sit in my study, game prototype spread across the desk, but I’m not looking at the pieces anymore.

I’m thinking about Nero.

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Fifth emperor of Rome. Ruled from 54 to 68 AD, died at thirty. Most people remember the fiddle, the fire, the cruelty. But they forget he was popular with the masses. Loved the games, the spectacles, the entertainment.

The fiddle story is probably false. Violins weren’t invented for another thousand years. But the image persists - an emperor performing while his city burns. Sometimes the legend becomes more powerful than the truth.

My game pieces sit scattered across the felt. Colored tokens representing power, influence, territory. I designed it to model psychological compulsion, the way unstable players destroy systems through predictable irrationality.

But what if Nero wasn’t irrational? What if the performances were strategic?

He gave the people what they wanted. Bread and circuses. Spectacle instead of substance. Entertainment over governance. And it worked for fourteen years.

Nero rebuilt Rome after the fire. But nobody remembers the urban planning, the fire codes, the practical improvements. They remember the stories about him singing while it burned.

I pick up a red token, turn it over in my palm. In my game, red represents chaos. The player who must escalate when cornered, who can’t accept losing, who destroys the board rather than admit defeat.

But what if chaos is the strategy, not the breakdown?

Nero performed. Sang, acted, raced chariots, hosted elaborate games. Critics called it undignified for an emperor. But the crowds loved it. Street approval translated to political power, even when the Senate disapproved.

Direct appeal to the masses. Bypass traditional institutions. Rule through entertainment rather than administrative competence.

I set the token down, lean back in my chair.

Nero had handlers too. Seneca, his tutor and advisor, tried to guide him toward traditional imperial behavior. Burrus commanded the Praetorian Guard, provided security and counsel. But Nero eventually dismissed them both. Started making his own decisions.

Went rogue.

The performances became more extreme. The paranoia increased. The gap between perception and reality widened until nobody could tell what was real anymore, including Nero himself.

He ended badly. Declared a public enemy by the Senate, abandoned by his guards, forced to commit suicide while muttering “What an artist perishes in me!”

Even at the end, performing.

I look at my game board again. All my careful modeling of psychological compulsion, institutional breakdown, chaos mechanics. I thought I was designing something theoretical.

But maybe I was just rediscovering something very old.

The emperor as entertainer. Governance as performance art. The audience complicit in their own destruction, cheering while the city burns because the show is so compelling.

Outside, a car passes down our quiet suburban street. Normal people sleeping in normal houses, trusting that someone competent is managing the complex systems that keep their world functioning.

Trusting that the emperors know what they’re doing.

Even when they’re just performing.

7

My phone buzzes at 6:47 AM. Unknown number.

“Have you solved the puzzle?”

I stare at the screen. Emma is in the shower, kids getting dressed upstairs. Morning sounds, family routine.

I set the phone down without responding.

It buzzes again.

“The crossword. Have you solved it?”

Direct. No games. No pretense that this might be a wrong number or spam.

I pick up the phone, start typing a response, then delete it. Start again, delete again.

What’s the right answer? Yes, I solved five simple clues that any middle schooler could handle? No, I haven’t bothered with an obvious time-waster? Does my response matter, or is the fact that I’m responding at all the only data point they need?

The phone stays silent for ten minutes. Long enough for me to finish my coffee, check the weather, convince myself maybe that’s all they wanted.

Then: “Nero was 30 when he died.”

My coffee cup stops halfway to my mouth.

They know I’ve been thinking about Nero. They know I spent last night in my study contemplating emperors and performances and the difference between madness and method.

How?

“Your crossing guard shift starts in 30 minutes.”

A reminder. Or a threat. Or just information. Impossible to tell the difference anymore.

I look around the kitchen. Same suburban morning, same family breakfast routine. Emma humming in the shower, Jake arguing with Sophie about cereal choices. Everything familiar except for the text conversation with someone who can apparently read my thoughts.

“Have a productive day.”

The last message. No question mark. Not a wish - an instruction.

I delete the entire conversation, but I know that doesn’t matter. They can reach me whenever they want, however they want. The crossing guard assignment isn’t just humiliation - it’s a leash. They know exactly where I’ll be, when I’ll be there, how to find me.

Twenty-eight minutes until I need to leave for my shift.

I go upstairs, kiss Emma goodbye, tell the kids to have a good day at school. Maintain the fiction that this is an ordinary morning in an ordinary house with ordinary problems.

But walking to my car, I think about Nero at thirty. Young for an emperor. Younger than I am now. Fourteen years of performing, of trying to please audiences he could never fully understand.

Fourteen years of wondering if he was in control or just following a script someone else had written.

My phone stays silent during the drive to school.

But I keep checking it anyway.