The Quickest in the West

Nobody knew his name.  Nobody cared.  What they knew was all they needed to know.  He was the greatest Socratic Seminarrer the western world had ever seen.  But for him, the western world wasn't enough.

"Welcome to the big leagues, kid."

The short Asian man with the Confucius mustache ushered him into the smoky bar with a sadistic grin, as legions of the universe's quickest, strongest, and smartest talkers leered at him.  Our hero glanced around once, cool as a cucumber, and, shoving the Chinese man's arm off of his shoulder walked towards his seat at the far side of the Socratic circle.  As he walked, two of his competitors at the United Nations World Socratic Seminar Championship jostled him with their elbows.  He strode on.  A Jamaican man pulled a needle out of one of his dreadlocks and stabbed it through the head of a voodoo doll, staring at him meaningfully.  He strode on.  He reached his seat, and slowly turned around, sat down, cracked his neck, and took out some note taking paper.  

It was time to get cracking.

He was ready.

For two hours, all 300 seminarees sat silently in their circle, waiting for an opening, any chance to attack, to claim victory in a split second.  Their hands twitched over their pencils, ready to dive towards them and start taking notes at a moments notice.  Their faces, scarred by the years of fighting through multitudes of lesser opponents just to get to this point, had as many drops of sweat as there are stars in the sky.  Their eyes twitched constantly--roaming the field, searching, searching constantly for weakness.  They couldn't cough, couldn't sneeze, couldn't blink, for fear of setting off the end.  

BANG!

The weakly Slovenian delegate slapped at a fly that had landed on his nose.  In a split second he slumped over at his desk, mentally, physically, and spiritually defeated by the 299 that had jumped on his weakness.  One by one they began to fall, trying so hardly to gain control of the room with a single word, but failing when they were preempted by another Seminarer who would slump over just as quickly, after being cut off in a brief but intense fight with the next to fall.  This continued until a silence suddenly fell over the battlefield.

When the smoke cleared, the Jamaican, a Russian android wearing a wife-beater, and, of course, our nameless hero were the only three left standing.

"Yah mon, I tin....."

"OKRASHKA, NYET, SPUTNIK, NYET!"  

And then there were two.  

Swiveling to face each other, they stared into each others eyes for 40 days and 40 nights, neither moving an inch, neither giving anything to his opponent.  But they had to end sometime.  And at that time, as one, they opened their mouths and competed for control of the Socratic conversation.  They had spoke at the same time, and neither would budge.  Getting louder and louder they both talked on.  Veins bulged in their foreheads, their faces turned blue, but neither would give in, neither would accept defeat.  They spake on, not heeding or comprehending their opponents words, just knowing that if they stopped they would lose.  For another 40 days this happened until, summoning up the last of his will power, our hero raised his voice in a final blast of pure emotional logical diction that overwhelmed the unfeeling, godless cyborg and let loose all the word pressure that had formed during their epic battle.  As he turned around and walked into the sunset, the United Nations building exploded behind him, unable to handle the stress caused by the conflict any longer.

He had just won the cold war.  But he didn't care.  He didn't look back, he only looked forward.  He walked on, without ever leaving his name.  He was a hero, but all he wanted was to find newer and greater challenges.  He walked into the sun.