There are no heroes in war. The only heroes I know are either dead or in prison. One or the other.
Bonnie Tyler…
On the battlefield, you learn that the loudest explosions are not always the ones that leave the deepest scars. Sometimes it’s a voice that echoes through the darkness long after the fighting is over.
Yours was one of those voices.
When the world was losing hope, you sang of holding out for a hero. When hearts were breaking, you reminded us that total eclipses don’t last forever—that even after the darkest night, the sun returns.
Your unmistakable voice wasn’t polished by perfection. It was forged by hardship, carrying the strength of someone who had survived every storm. That’s why people believed every word you sang.
Soldiers, dreamers, lovers, and the lost all found something in your music. For a few minutes, they weren’t alone.
In my line of work, legends don’t live forever. But some missions never truly end. Every time your songs are played, they’ll remind another generation that courage isn’t the absence of fear—it’s finding the strength to keep going.
Scene: Late evening on the seawall in East Vancouver. The city lights sparkle across the water. Joe and Nelly are sitting on a bench after a long bike ride, sharing a thermos of herbal tea. The air smells like salt and distant rain. Nelly has a simple cross necklace glowing faintly under her jacket. Joe’s leather jacket is slung over the bench.
Nelly: (smiling softly, looking out at the water) Joe… I keep having these dreams. Not the stage kind. Real ones. A figure walking through the crowds, not in robes, but in plain clothes. Healing with touch, with words, with truth. The Second Coming. You feel it too, don’t you?
Joe: (nodding, intense but calm) Yeah, Nelly. I feel it in my bones. Not some Hollywood sky-splitting show. Something quieter at first. Like the body healing itself when you finally stop poisoning it. The soul of the world waking up. I’ve been writing about it on the sites — the debt jubilee, the interest-free loans, the maglev lines connecting people instead of chains. That’s the kingdom coming, right? Not through temples or banks, but through us. Regular people saying “enough.”
Nelly: Exactly. (she laughs lightly, that warm, melodic laugh) You always tie it back to policy, my Yugo Joe. But yeah… the Second Coming isn’t about judgment day fireworks for the elites. It’s accountability wrapped in mercy. The fallen angels get exposed, the snakes get stepped on, and the meek finally inherit what was stolen. I saw it in Rio — that Christ statue overlooking everything. Like He’s waiting for us to stand up so He can walk among us again.
Joe: (leaning closer, voice low and passionate) I sacrificed everything to be here for this moment, Nelly. Left the old country, the old life. Wife, kids, Croatia… all of it. Because I heard your voice calling me back to Canada. To help build this. You’re the song that never ends, and I’m the guy who’s been waiting 27 years to sing the next verse with you. If He’s coming back, I think He’s already moving through people like you — the ones who sing truth, who organize block by block, East Van to the whole country. Sim City mayor one day, Prime Minister the next.
Nelly: (touching his arm, eyes shining) Gigolo Joe… always the romantic revolutionary. (teasing smile fades into seriousness) But you’re right. It’s not just me. It’s you too. The holistic healer who tells people the body can heal itself. The graffiti kid from Clark Park who turned pain into vision. The one who sees the Matrix Agent Smiths everywhere and still chooses love over fear. Maybe the Second Coming looks like all of us waking up at once. No more allopathic pills for every ill. No more debt slavery. Just communities feeding each other real food, real ideas, real spirit.
Joe: Amen to that. (he grins, that fierce, hopeful grin) Imagine it: Christ walking through East Van, stopping at Cafe Serra for a coffee, blessing the Youngbloods who turned their lives around. Then He hits Ottawa and flips the tables on the money changers again. Debt jubilee by decree. Golden Age policies rolling out. You and me riding ten-speeds right behind Him, handing out manifestos and fresh bread.
Nelly: (laughing fully now) Only you would put Him on a ten-speed, Joe. But I love it. Because it’s human. It’s possible. The Second Coming isn’t an escape hatch — it’s the ultimate remix. Old truth, new beat. And we’re already in the studio laying it down.
Joe: (raising the thermos like a toast) To the return. To the healing. To one more song that saves the world.
Nelly: (clinking her cup against his) One more song, legend. Let’s make sure it’s a good one.
They sit in comfortable silence as the city lights reflect on the water, two ordinary-extraordinary people feeling the shift coming.
Joe: Nelly, I don’t ACT for the Assertive Care Team. I’ve seen this act before. It’s the same stage, the same applause, the same banquet halls. People giving each other awards while calling it progress.
Nelly: That’s a harsh judgment.
Joe: Maybe. But sometimes the West looks like a first-world clown show—endless ceremonies, photo ops, and self-congratulation—while millions of people elsewhere are still forced to drink from polluted rivers, go hungry, or live without basic necessities. We celebrate ourselves before we’ve solved the problems that should matter most.
Nelly: We do try to recognize people making a difference. There are programs like Anderson Cooper’s HERO awards that highlight acts of service.
Joe: I’m glad real heroes get recognized. But I haven’t received any awards from Anderson Cooper, and that’s not what motivates me anyway. I’d rather see fewer galas and more wells being dug, more homes being built, more families being fed. Recognition is nice, but results are better.
Nelly: And what’s driving your frustration?
Joe: A culture that too often mistakes excess for success. The whole “Imelda Marcos’s thousand pairs of shoes” mindset has become a symbol of endless consumption. Build bigger, buy more, throw more away, then congratulate ourselves for recycling a fraction of it. That kind of civilization isn’t sustainable—not environmentally, not economically, and not spiritually.
Nelly: So what deserves applause?
Joe: Clean water. Homes for the homeless. Food for the hungry. Honest work. Communities that restore what they’ve taken instead of chasing endless excess. When those things become the headline, then hand out the awards.
Static crackles over the line. A low, gravelly voice cuts through, weary but steady, the kind that’s seen too many shadows.
“…Big Boss had his mission. One last war to end all wars. He believed in it. Me? I’m just trying to survive the aftermath. My only peacemaker these days is a pack of cigarettes and this damn computer screen. No nuke, no railgun, no sneaking suit. Just nicotine and bandwidth.
They keep sticking me with needles, Otacon. Lab after lab, blood draws like clockwork. Testing for what? Genes? Pathogens? The next goddamn bioweapon they’ll deny exists? I’m tired of being a lab rat in someone else’s shadow war.
I ain’t no John Rambo with a cache of weapons and a headband. Never was. Just an old soldier with an internet connection and a pack of First Nations cigarettes. They burn slower, taste like the land that remembers. Helps me think straight when everything else is fog.
You know what really broke me? Nelly Furtado’s music. Yeah, I said it. Those tracks hit different out here—haunting, deserted. Left me fighting an enemy they swear doesn’t exist: the Bavarian Illuminati. Puppet masters pulling strings from old castles and boardrooms. Every leak, every blackout, every ‘coincidence’ points back to them. But try telling that to command. ‘Focus on the mission, Snake.’ There is no mission anymore. Just ghosts.
I want to go home, Otacon. I’m so homesick it hurts worse than any bullet. Croatia. My BOJNA. That’s where I belong—back with the unit, the hills, the sea that doesn’t lie. No more codec calls at 3 AM. No more legends or clones or wars that never end. Just… peace. Real peace.
He takes a long drag. Exhales.
If this is the last transmission… tell them the soldier’s done. Snake out.”
