This is just a story, nothing more...
Writing
“Idiot, Moron” Charles hurried to
his study to grab his writing utensils. She was writing again. He wasn’t angry
at Elizabeth. In truth, he was thrilled she was writing. He was a writer and he
saw in her the ability which would outshine him.
“Tim, you might be the smartest programmer
in the world, but you have no imagination.” Charles threw the books, pens, and
pencils across his desk. “You might be the savior of mankind but what of its
history did you ever think outside…Ah.” The last word came out through
clenched teeth.
Charles was nearly sure Tim couldn’t
hear him, Part of him wished he did, and part didn’t. He was grateful, but some
things made life so much more difficult.
“It isn’t as if I don’t have
anything else to do.”
“Elizabeth’s work isn’t finished
thankfully. I still have time.” He just
wished he had been paying attention when she had said she was going to write.
“It couldn’t have been a story about
an alternate world, could it. It just had to be an alternative history story.”
He said threw teeth that were clenched again. “There is still time,” Charles
took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, “There’s still time, there is still
time.”
Charles pushed a couple of the book
aside and took what looked like a leather-bound tomb. He opened it to an empty
page and grabbed a pen and started writing.
Elizabeth shared part of her story with her mom and dad. It was a fantastic tale where Ireland was truly a land of magic and magical creatures.
It was, of course, absolute fiction. It never ever happened. Though the cities
and some of the names were real the story never took place in the real history
of mankind. The Roman empire didn’t build a wall to protect gal from the
magical creatures of Ireland. There were never giants other than men who called
giants because they were naturally taller than others around them. They could
never build land bridges from Ireland to England.
There were originally 13 colonies in the New World who did break
away from the Old World. Magical enchantments never keep commoners at bay. Though
Elizbeth wrote things about a different history they were just made up. They
never happened. She just made them up as a great author does. An author worthy
of renown.
Charles cringed. He shouldn’t have
written that last line. It was done. He was an author. Other stories had written
about the power of the author, but they were all wrong. Authors had no powers,
no magical abilities to change reality. Even now they didn’t, well… Charles
wasn’t going to think about it right now. It gave him a headache. Tim might
have had something to do with that, He probably did, Charles thought but
he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t going to think about it too much either. Too much
danger there.
“Back to writing.” Charles bent back
to writing in the tomb.
Elizabeth wrote more stories about this alternate history but all
they were was fiction. Her words were never real. Though her father and mother
praised them for being good because they were, they were not true history. Only
later would Elizabeth write the true history. It would be then that she would
write the truth of things and fiction to cause people to think about life and
to just have joy in the moment. It was only after her father told her the true
nature of all that her uncle had done did her work change.
It was only after the conversation should her work be considered
real. It isn’t real now and wouldn’t be for some time. The End.
Charles dropped the pen as if it was
on fire. It bounced off the desk and landed on the floor. He ignored it and closed
the tomb. Reaching over he opened another and scanned the pages, then let out a
sigh. “Tim, you’re an idiot.”
