Author Information
The Jack They Missed
The Jack They Missed
Tesla died
in a narrow hotel room
with lightning folded
into paper.
Outside
the century was already
arguing with itself.
Men in dark coats
came for the papers.
They moved carefully
like gamblers
collecting a deck
from a table
no one else
was meant to touch.
Somewhere in that quiet sorting
stood a man named Trump.
Not the one
the century keeps shouting about.
Another one.
An engineer.
A man asked
to look through the strange cards
of a dead inventor’s mind
and decide
whether the sparks inside them
could burn the world.
History says
he found nothing.
No death rays.
No bottled thunder.
Just theories.
Strange currents.
Ideas that moved
through air.
But electricity
has always been like that.
Invisible
until the moment
everything lights up.
Years pass.
Another table appears.
Different room.
Same human game.
Someone smiles
and lays down a card.
Trump.
Like it ends the argument.
Like power
is something that fits neatly
between two fingers.
But anyone
who has watched lightning
knows better.
In certain games
the jack of trump
outranks the king.
A strange rule.
The servant
above the crown.
The overlooked card
suddenly
holding the room.
I think Tesla
would have liked that.
He understood currents.
How power travels
through quiet conductors
long before
the loud ones notice.
Somewhere
the old papers still exist.
Dust on the edges.
Diagrams
like storm clouds
waiting.
And every now and then
the lights flicker.
A reminder.
The highest card
was never the king.
It was the spark
no one saw
jump the table
until the deck
was already burning.
-JSM
