While the Kingdom’s Leader Played Golf(Rich Puckett) The sun hung lazily over the emerald fairways as the Leader swung his polished club, sending the ball soaring toward the manicured green. Around him, advisors and foreign dignitaries laughed at his jokes, their sycophantic smiles hiding their unease. A few miles away, the clinking of fine china and crystal echoed through a grand ballroom where the wealthy feasted on delicacies at a $1 million-a-plate dinner. The Leader raised his glass, toasting to prosperity—*his* prosperity—while his people starved.

Outside the gilded gates, the streets thrummed with anger. Thousands marched, their voices hoarse from shouting, their signs held high: **"FOOD NOT TAXES"**, **"HEAL THE SICK, NOT YOUR WALLET"**, **"NO MORE LIES."** The protests weren’t contained to one nation—across the world, people watched in horror as the Leader tightened his grip, crushing dissent beneath the weight of his policies.

He had started with the immigrants. *"Only the criminals,"* he had said. Then it was asylum seekers. Then anyone who *looked* like they might oppose him. The courts had tried to stop him—once. But judges who ruled against him were stripped of their positions, and the rest fell silent, fearing the same fate.

Then came the disappearances.

In the dead of night, vans rolled through neighborhoods. Those who spoke too loudly, who organized, who dared to question, were taken. Some were shipped to foreign prisons, sold off in backroom deals with dictators who admired the Leader’s ruthlessness. Others vanished into black sites, like the one in Cuba, where no laws reached.

His loyalists cheered. *"Why waste time with trials?"* they sneered. *"The troublemakers are gone. Now we can eat."*

And they did eat—just enough to survive. Bread prices had tripled. Medicine was a luxury. Hospitals turned away the sick as funding dried up. The people whispered in fear, but some still dared to hope.

One night, in the shadows of crumbling homes and dimly lit churches, they knelt. Not to the Leader. Not to his enforcers. But to the God he had mocked.

**"Deliver us,"** they prayed. **"Remember Your people."**

At first, nothing changed. The Leader still played golf. The prisons still filled. The rich still feasted.

But Heaven was listening.

It began with a cough. A fever. A sudden weakness in the Leader’s limbs. His doctors scrambled, whispering behind closed doors. The finest medicine money could buy did nothing. Within days, the man who had ruled with an iron fist lay gasping, his body betraying him just as he had betrayed his people.

And then—silence.

No fanfare. No grand battle. Just the quiet hand of justice.

The prisons opened. The taxes lifted. The people breathed again.

The nation was broken, but not beyond repair. Slowly, they rebuilt—not just their homes, but their souls. They remembered the cost of silence. And they vowed never to forget.

For while the kingdom’s leader had played golf, God had been keeping score.

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