Let Him Think We Watched [Narrated]

On the eve of his eightieth year, the King demanded a parade.

He summoned the soldiers, the singers, and the screens. The tanks were polished. The jets were rehearsed. Children in colonial wigs practiced salutes while old men climbed risers holding signs that said, "We remember." Vendors set up booths beside the barricades, selling soft pretzels, commemorative coins, and hats shaped like crowns.

Behind a double wall of fencing, the King stood beside his wife, nodding solemnly. Fireworks exploded behind him in the shape of corporate logos—Lockheed Martin, Coinbase, UFC. A drone hovered, capturing every angle. One soldier yawned beneath his visor. The anthem skipped on the loudspeaker, then restarted. A screen flickered, replaying the King's entrance again, and again.

The air was thick with the scent of burned sugar and diesel. Rows of folding chairs sat half-filled. The great lawns lay mostly undisturbed. Even the tanks seemed to roll by without urgency, their treads squealing like tired shopping carts. The cheer was measured, dutiful—like applause at a matinee no one quite remembered attending.

Blocks away, and towns away, and counties, states, and coasts away, the streets filled quietly. The people carried no flags. Some wore black. Others pushed strollers or carried cardboard signs scrawled with ink. They walked slowly, without chants or music. One child asked her mother, "Why are we walking?"

The mother didn’t answer. She remembered a time she believed parades meant something else. She squeezed her daughter’s hand.

In Des Moines, a retired librarian passed out water bottles. In Tucson, someone rewired a speaker to play silence. In more than two thousand places across the country, people walked. Each small gesture counted. The air buzzed—not with drones, but with something alive. Something that did not need a podium to echo.

Back at the parade, a soldier made a heart with his fingers. The King beamed as if it were prophecy. The band struck up a familiar song. A few voices near the stage began to sing, off-cue but earnest: "Happy birthday to..."

A dog barked. A storm gathered above the monuments but did not fall.

The King stood still, blinking into the camera light. Somewhere far beyond the barricades, a man beneath a red umbrella whispered into a microphone, "When you do the right thing, people just walk past."

The rain held back. Perhaps out of respect. Or perhaps to let him think he was still seen.