Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Island

"You won't get away so easily!"
He pulled himself back to his feet and gave chase.
Thirty years I have pursued you; I am not about to let you escape!
Through the door, down the hallway, he saw his nemesis turn the corner.  He rounded the corner and came to a halt.
Around the corner, his nemesis' base simply stopped.  What had once been a passage to the launching bay was now a vast expanse of white.  His nemesis stood there, eyes fixed on a man in a suit before him.  A reassuring gaze, a hand on the shoulder - with a flutter of papers, his nemesis ceased to be.
"It is time."
He felt as though he was standing at the edge of a yawning abyss.  An electric pressure in the air drove him to his knees.  Every fiber of his being told him to flee, run, escape, evade, retreat, disengage; he remained rooted in place.  He fumbled for his revolver, the bullet he had been saving for this day, his nemesis gone, its purpose now wasted, taking aim
run, get out, danger, fear, horror, nightmare
A gunshot.  A rustle of paper.  A line of red across the cheek.  A curious expression.  A finger touching the line.
"So I can be harmed?  One hell of a papercut you gave me."
He struggled for words, stammering, muttering, repeated clicks from an empty revolver.
"Who are you?!"
A sigh.
"A garden requires tending.  Sometimes a plant withers and dies.  Sometimes a seed never grows.  A garden is marred by empty pots and rotting flowers.  The dying and dead are uprooted, thrown to the compost to be recycled, brought back to their origin to fertilize others."
Desperate, he threw the empty gun.  It scattered like a stack of cards, fluttering to the ground and melting into it.
"You are an undeveloped character from an unfinished story.  I am here to unravel this story, to revert your world to its raw potential so that a new story may be written in its place."
Tears flowed down his cheeks.
"But I've been chasing him for thirty years.  I..."
"But that's all you have: a nemesis and a desire for justice.  It really makes it hard to speak with you.  Look at yourself: you have no defining characteristics!  What is your name?  What do you look like?  Where are you from?  I'm getting a bit of a Bond/Blofeld or Holmes/Moriarty feel from you and your nemesis.  Are you from England?"
The man stared at the uncreator, eyes full of fear.
"The man?  Well, that's one problem solved," the uncreator said.  "You have no idea how difficult it was to word things so I was never the subject; you were so undefined that I had no idea how to switch the subject back to you."
The man stared at the uncreator, eyes full of fear.
"You have my pity.  I'm sure you would have made an interesting protagonist."
The man stared at the uncreator, eyes full of tears.
"So that's it?  My story will never be told, then?"
A reassuring gaze, a hand on the shoulder - with a flutter of papers, the man ceased to be.
"It has been told.  And now it is over."
All that remained was a broad concept of the location: a secret base on a tropical island.  The man in the suit inhaled, savoring the potential of the idea.
So many different things could happen in a place like this.  I wonder what the author will do with it next.
The island melted into the ground, turning back to its raw potential and sinking into the realm of paper.
The uncreator left.  There were more stories that needed tending.

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