Bernard the All-Powerful, or Bernie as his friends would call him, was a gentle soul. When you lived for thousands of years, it was difficult to take anything or anyone too seriously – including yourself. Sure, he went power hungry a few centuries ago, but he tried the whole ‘world overlord thing’ and it just didn’t suit him. Too much responsibility, he had decided, and the sound of screams could really give a wizard a migraine.

Nowadays, he preferred lounging on his porch, drinking up the sun and trying to keep up to date with the onslaught of rising technology. It was hard to keep up sometimes. When did horse-drawn carriages become hunking pieces of metal? They even had the gall to call them horse-powered. 

Bernie scoffed, but he couldn’t help being intrigued by the rise of the electric vehicle. Mechanic work and its intricacies were steadily drawing his curiosity thanks only to the way the cars kept changing. Vehicles didn’t have the same charm as a horse and carriage, but they were certainly more diverse. Four-wheel drives, electric cars, European cars; the list went on. Held together by metal components and strange car fluids. Entire teams of professionals and workshops dedicated to their general service.

In a way, cars were their own type of overlord. Bernie certainly felt that the mechanics near Toowoomba were practising a strange form of magic. He leaned back in his sun chair, levitating a drink to his lips and taking a large sip. When was the last time he had left this chair? It must have been days. He had even spelled the sun to shine a little longer on his porch each day. Was this really what he would do for the rest of his immortal life? 

Out there, there were expert mechanics, innovative scientists and well-learned academics whizzing through their short lives with such vigour. He hadn’t felt that type of passion for a long time. Panic struck him. His first-ever existential crisis was setting in.