Just a story

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.”