Let the Story End

People are always asking for what happens next.  It's not enough for them that I save the world and found the love of my life.  Maybe I just want to live a quiet, normal life now, with a nice home with my husband, maybe a couple of kids.  Sure, I was created to be a fighter, but I just want to be done fighting.  I just want to be left alone.

But that's not enough for people.  The first story was so interesting and intense and moving that they want more.  There was never intended to be a sequel.  My story was intended to have an open-ended but implied happy ending.  It was supposed to end in beauty and victory and hope.  And that was supposed to be the end.

But because so many couldn't accept it, because so many claimed to have loved me and wanted to hear more, my author felt forced to write a sequel.  I'm not sure his heart was in it.  He had done so well with the first story, how could he do better with the second?  He couldn't possibly write the happy, boring ending he originally wanted for me.  He had to do something amazing, drastic, moving, heart-breaking.

That's why he killed the love of my life and left me alone and angry and seeking revenge.  The entire sequel revolves around my descent into darkness and near insanity following the loss of the thing that mattered most to me.  Readers were forced to question their love for the character who was so brave and noble in the first book and wonder if I was really all they thought me to be.

Of course, at the end, there is still a glimmer of hope.  There has to be or else the fans would riot even more. It was just enough glimmer for them to think that it was all worth it.  They ended up enjoying the book in the end.  They applauded it as "not quite living up to the hype, but certainly living up to the original."

And at what cost?  They had demanded this second book, they had created the hype, they had forced my author to do something drastic in an attempt to fulfill it all.  But what about me?  What about my life, the life they ruined?  They forced my author to warp me into something I was not originally intended to be.  Sure, the second book is still about me, but it's more of a shadow or dark cloud of who I was in the first book.  I couldn't be the same as I was before.  Of course I had to be different.  Otherwise, the reviews would have pegged it as simply "a rehash of what had already been written" and my author certainly didn't want that.  They didn't want more of the same, they wanted MORE.  They demanded to see another side of me, and so that was what they got.

And in seeing that other side, they destroyed me.  I'm wreck of what I once was.  My happy life is gone, and I'm left worse off than at the beginning of the first book.  Hope, yeah, whatever.  Hope is nothing compared to actually having the life I had always dreamed of as a little girl.  I had my dream, my heaven, for a few short time suspended years before the sequel came out.  And then it was over.  Forever.

Fans are satisfied now, for some reason.  They must like my pain, because they don't seem to be begging for another book quite as much as they were before.  And so, it seems likely I will be stuck in this state forever, without my love, without my life, even without my friends being fully back on my side, but with this blasted glimmer of hope.

I have to hand it to him, he did leave it open for a third book, much more so than he did with the first, when he wasn't expected to be forced to write a sequel.  There would be a final story, maybe something that more closely mirrors the first.  Maybe he was expecting, hoping himself, that people would want a third book, that he could do a sandwich type thing, the two good slices of bread with the bad bologna in the middle.

But its all about the fans.  The "real" people.  What they want is what they get.  That's what happens when you become a little successful.  If you're not successful, you might as well do what you want.  If you're already super successful, you might as well do what you want.  If you're in the middle, like my author, you have to do what the fans demand.  The fans demanded my demise and he gave it to them.  Goody for them.  I hate them all.

You might just think that's my dark side coming out.  And I say, of course it is.  I wouldn't even have this dark side if it wasn't for all of you.  So thank you.  Thank you for loving me so much that you demanded more, more to a story that was already concluded, nicely wrapped up with a bow on top.  Thank you for wanting to see another side of me, the dark side that was never meant to exist.  Thanks for all of that.  I really appreciate it.  Of course, you don't really care.  You loved me so much, but I'm still just a character to you.  Someone who isn't real.  Someone who doesn't actually matter, just put here for your entertainment.  And wanting more entertainment, of course, you couldn't just let the story end.  Why couldn't you have just let the story end?

Life

Life is strange.  I'm just a collection of cells.  Why should a collection of cells have any sense of life or being?  Why is it important for me to be aware that I'm alive and that I one day must die?  Why not just live on instinct, with an innate sense of what I must do or not do to survive?  Why have all these emotions?  Why feel such intense pleasure and pain, sorrow and longing, hope and fear?  What good do all these feelings accomplish?  Fear may keep me alive, but it may also cripple me.  Pain is a warning, but also a torment.  And why would I ever deserve pleasure of any kind?  What is it's purpose?  Is it just a reward for good behavior?  Then why do I sometimes feel it even when I'm not on my best behavior, and then afterwards feel guilty?  What good does that accomplish?

I'm just a collection of cells, that somehow lives and breaths and walks about and talks and writes things such as this.  Why should I ever be anything more than just a creature, like any other creature, surviving on instinct and intuition, and one day dying alone to little account.  But somehow, I'm more.  What makes me more?  What makes man more?  I have something more.  What should I do with it?  What can I do?

I have this knowledge, this conscience, these feelings.  What am I supposed to do with them now?  Is there something greater than me?  Call it God or science or nature or humanity or whatever you want, there's something more at work here.  Why else should I feel the things I do, things that don't seem to be directly linked to my survival.  Why is there more to me than simply surviving?  Why is there more to any of us?  What are we doing with it?  What will I do with it, with this strange and truly unfathomable life I've been given?  What will you do?

Three

Three little pigs, all afraid of the big bad wolf, each trying to do what they can to be safe.

Ask the first pig why he built his house of straw, and he will tell you that's what he could afford.  He had substantial funds once, just like his brothers, but his closest friend was sick and needed help and he gave away all he could, leaving him with very little in terms of seed money, just enough seed money to grow the straw needed to build his home which the big bad wolf then destroyed.  Ask the first pig how his anger flared at the wolf and he will tell you he is not angry, just sad.  The wolf was hungry and the first little pig was nothing more than food to him.  He wishes the wolf had just found someone else to eat.  Then maybe that wolf wouldn't have ended up as a stew himself.

Ask the second pig why he built his house of sticks and he will tell you that was in keeping with his desired level of income.  The second pig had actually made a great fortune, greater than either of his brothers, but he found it was destroying him.  He ignored both his friends and family and had more possessions than he knew what to do with.  Realizing the downward spiral he had thrown his life into, he gave away as much as he felt was reasonable, to the poor and needy and such, leaving himself with enough to build a modest home of sticks.  He thought it would be sufficiently safe and secure, until the wolf came a-knockin'.  For the first time in a long time, the second pig wished he had left a little more than himself, but as he and the first little pig fled together to the third and final brother's house, he looked around at the other homes surrounding him, the homes had helped his poor and downtrodden neighbors build, and he knew in his heart he had done the right thing.

Ask the third pig why he built his house of brick and he will tell you it was the best house his money could afford.  His brothers were fools for giving their money away to others, he will say.  Still, he loves them, and would never turn them down as they fled to him begging to be let into his wonderful home.  They were exhausted and out of breath, so he let them relax in the guest sitting room and had his butler bring them some tea.  And then the wolf came a-knockin'.  Foolish wolf.  Silly wolf.  Even if he managed to get in the front door, the alarms would sound and security would be here in a matter of seconds to drag him away.  But that didn't seem good enough to the third little pig.  Not sporting enough.  So he turned off his alarm system and let the wolf think he had a chance.

The first two pigs seemed afraid and even a little sad.  "Maybe we can just give him some bread and fruit," the first little pig suggested.  "He's just hungry.  I know he thinks he wants to eat us, but maybe we can show him there's a better way."

"Yes," the second little pig agreed.  "I have to admit, I'm not so sure it will work, but it's at least worth a try.  He's just hungry.  And maybe he doesn't even have a home of his own.  I've never seen him before.  He must have come a long way just to find something to eat.  It certainly shouldn't be us, but isn't there something we can give him?"

"No," the third little pig disagreed.  "I have earned all I have, just as the two of you did before you gave it all away, and I'm keeping it for myself, for us.  I'm not giving it away to some angry, cruel wolf who wants to eat my brothers and me.  This wolf will get what he deserves, which is nothing and worse."

The first little pig's eyes grew wide.  "What are you thinking of doing, brother?"

The third little pig lets a sly grin creep across his face.  "Tonight, boys," he says, "the wolf shall not feast on us, we shall feast on him."

And so, reluctantly, the first two pigs go along with the plan of their older brother.  They sadly help him taunt and tease the wolf until the wolf decides to climb down the chimney where the third little pig has a bot of boiling water and his finest chef waiting.  The third little pig's mouth begins to water as he watches his chef work.  Meanwhile, the first two little pigs huddle in a corner in the second guest bedroom with their hooves over their ears, trying to drown out the wolf's screams of agony.

When the third little pig calls his two brothers for dinner, they are reluctant to come.  They cannot think about how delicious wolf must be, as their brother is thinking, they can only think about the screams and the pain the wolf must have felt being boiled alive.  So as their third brother digs in, they push their food aside.  And sit in silence.  The third little pig looks up at them.  "What's wrong, brothers?" he asks.  "We had a great victory today.  Eat, eat!  If you are lamenting the lose of your homes, don't worry, you are welcome to stay with me as long as you wish!  I may even consider giving you loans to build new homes."  He sneers.  "As long as you choose not to just give it away."

At that the two little pigs glance at each other.  The second nods to the first.  "Good-bye, brother," the first says.  They stand, each pouring his wolf stew back into the pot.  The second takes the entire pot off from the table as they turn and walk away.  The first helps him as it is very large.

"Where are you going?" the third little pig cries out.  "Why are you taking my wolf?"

The first little pig turns back to him, a deep sadness in his voice, "This isn't your wolf," he said.  "He came to me first and I wish I had done the right thing."

"What?" the third pig shouts, "Let him eat you?"

The second pig sighs and shakes his head.  "Not let him be eaten," he replies.  "But what's done is done, and there seems only one right thing to do now."

And the two little pigs lug the giant pot out of the brick house, to the second pig's neighborhood where they distribute it to the poorest, most hungry families without telling them a thing about what's in it.  They considered dumping it out, but decided it would go to better use feeding those who were truly in need.  Perhaps two wrongs don't make a right, but at least the second wrong was more right than the first, they decided.  And done with more love.

After they are done, late that night, they return the pot to their brother's house, leaving it on his doorstep, not even bothering to knock or to ring the bell, and begin their journey far, far away.  They do not know any army of angry wolf relatives is off plotting revenge against them and their brother, knowing only where the third little pig lives.  They aren't trying to run and hide from the wolf mob.  They are trying to get away from their brother and his superiority complex.  They don't wish him harm, in fact they wish him well, as they vanish into the night.  Will their brother be eaten in a few days by a dozen angry wolves coming to seek their own revenge?  They do not know.  The possibility does not even occur to them.  They just want to get out, to be free once again, and to forget the horrible, blood-curdling screams of the "big bad" wolf, who was just trying to survive.

Playdough

So many colors and so many shapes to make.  Sitting there at your table alone or perhaps with your siblings or friends, you can make anything, do anything, be anything.  When you're young, you can mold your future into anything you want it to be.

And then you grow up.  Playdough is a fond memory, perhaps one you choose to pass onto your own children, but its not something for you anymore.  Your life is what you've made it.  The choices you've made when you were younger seem to shape who you are today.  You can still make tweaks, minor corrections, but the mold's already set.  The playdough's been left out for days, weeks, months, even years without an intervention.  It is what it is, and it feels like there's very little you can do about it now.

What if you want to start over, to begin again.  Is your only choice to give fresh dough to the future generation, to those who come after you.  Is your future really already hard and fast, determined by all that's led up to this point without much room for growth.

Maybe you want to go back to just playing with playdough again.  Maybe you want to crush what you are, start with a fresh ball, use a different color.  Maybe you want your future to once again be undecided, like when you were young, like when you were too young to worry about your future at all.  Can you do that?

It isn't fair really... when you're shaping your life, molding it into what it is to become, you don't really appreciate it, may not even realize what you've doing.  You've always been able to reshape it before, to recreate it, to try a different mold.  And then one day you realized you'd forgotten what you were doing.  You'd let it set out for those days or weeks or months or even years and its hardened.  Is there no going back?  Now that you actually realize what you've done, are you stuck with what you created back when you didn't even know what you were doing?

Watching the new children play gives you hope.  Can you pass onto them the lessons you didn't learn before it was too late?  Will they even listen?  Didn't the adults in your life try to do the same thing with you when you were young?  Did you listen?

Maybe you can start all over, maybe you can't, but there's always playdough out there somewhere, wanting to be formed into something beautiful, even if its not just your own.

Write Something

Too long have I found distraction in the lesser things of life, caught up in what I think matters, but doesn't really.  It's time to refocus on what truly matters, at least until tomorrow, when I fall back into my rut again.  Is there no breaking free?  I know I can't do it alone.  Who will help me?  Isn't that question the thing that really matters?

---

Nothing novel remains, especially the desire for novelty.

---

Dance, twirl, spin.
Fall, and get back up again.

A smile, a wink, a nudge.
How could anyone hold a grudge?

An anger grows in me,
trying mightily to break free.

Dance, twirl, spin.
Fall, and get back up again.

---

Out of words, nothing left to say.  Is it okay to steal thoughts from others at a time like this?  Will they even care?  Some do, some don't.  Do you want your words to be yours alone, or do you want them to truly live?

---

Hope.  It's more powerful than you think, no matter how powerful you think it is.  (And love is even better.)

Amber - Part 1

Amber's hair is black.  She just finished dying it to spite her parents for naming her in such a ridiculous manner.  Amber's parents are more than a little odd.  Before Amber, their only child, was born, they decided to make a concentrated effort to not think about any potential baby names ahead of time, opting to name their child the first thing they thought of when they saw him/her (also not knowing ahead of time the gender of their baby).  Amber supposes she should be grateful for that ugly tuft of orangish-red hair that showed up on her newborn head.  Otherwise, she might have had an even worse name like "Scream" or "Wrinkle".  Those are the things she associates with babies.

Amber doesn't really hate babies, though.  Mostly, she actually loves them, or at least once did, and is just bitter at her parents for never having another child.  Amber would have loved, she thought, to have a younger brother or sister.  Her parents decided she was wrong.  When Amber asked if she would ever have a sibling like the other kids in her fourth grade class (at that time it was just her and a very strange boy who still ate lots of paste who were only children), her parents smiled and said that they loved her too much for that.  In confusion, Amber said she wanted a younger brother or sister, but her parents patted her on the head and wandered off to make some weird organic dinner.  Turns out, they had decided that if they had another child, Amber would think they didn't love her enough.  Strangely, Amber decided they didn't love her enough because they ignored her request for them to at least consider giving her someone to play with other than the bratty girls at her school.

Amber's parents tend not to listen to anything she says.  Well, sometimes they listen, but then they promptly come up with a reason why Amber doesn't actually know what she wants.  They tell Amber that she is so good at art, particularly the darker variety (Amber has considered telling them it's because she channels her rage at them into her paintings), and that she should pursue that as a career.  Amber has decided that instead she will choose a subject she would like to be better at but did horribly in during high school.  For now, that seems to be Chemistry.  She's all signed up for the basic Chemistry course and another Chemistry elective in spite of technically being enrolled in the art school.

This is only Amber's second night away from home for college.  Her naturally blonde roommate is off whoring herself at some frat party that said roommate's older brother invited her to.  Amber's not bitter about not being invited along.  She would have said no anyway.  She's all too happy to sit her looking happily at her reflection as she reflects upon the fact that her parents would never let her do this.  She'd actually asked once before around her sophomore year of college and her parents forbid it saying that if she dyed her hair, she wouldn't be Amber anymore.  Amber is considering whether she should legally change her name to "Black" and claim she was just following their advice.  Amber is pretty sure 18 is old enough to get a legal name change.  Maybe after she's done with this smiling contentedly crap, she'll look that up on the internet.

Applications

My name is Sarah.  I'm a wife and mother of two.  I want to join the uprising because my entire life has been pointless and you are the only option I have left.  My husband doesn't love me and I've spent so much time trying to get him to love me again that I neglected my children to the point where they've become little brats that I can't stand to be around.  They are lost to me.  I've given up all hope of getting either them or my husband to love me again.  Even if my kids said they loved me, I would know it was a lie.  How could they love me after how I've treated them?  And even if they did love me I don't love them.  I think my whole family would be better off if I just disappeared.  And my career is a joke, too.  I worked for one year before I got pregnant and by now, my degree is so far outdated that I would be laughed out of any job interview.  Except this one.  I have nothing left to live for, and that's exactly what you need.  My past gives me no fond memories and my future gives me no hope.  All I can do is live in the now.  That's exactly what you need.  Also, I have a very generic face, as my husband has told me, so I can blend into any crowd without a problem.

My name is Garret.  I think what you guys do is totally awesome and I am so totally on board.  I can't think of anything more sweet than the way you guys show the man what's what.  I can't even describe how excited I would be to join you.  Plus, I'm such a total screw up and so totally going no where with my life right now that I'm sure my parents would be thrilled to see me gone.

My name is Sam.  I am a shadow.  I am no one.  No one knows where I come from or where I go.  Unlike a shadow, I can be controlled, reigned in.  I want that.  I want to be controlled by you.  Use me.  I'm perfect.

My name is Roger.  I do not fear death.  I've already died twice, legally, and obviously been revived both times.  I used to be a daredevil when I was younger.  That's what got me killed, those two times.  I've had plenty of lovers, but no one I've ever connected with.  Love and attachments are not a concern.  I think I might even be incapable of love.  But I am not incapable of loyalty.  I was so loyal to my manager when I was a daredevil that I still listed him as my manager for five years after he was dead.  And speaking of being a daredevil, I have skills that you wouldn't believe.  I can twist myself, contort myself, throw myself, run over hot coals, jump an amazing distance, I can ride a motorcycle and drive a speed boat at speeds and angles you wouldn't believe were possible, I can also ski and snowboard, probably lots of other stuff I'm forgetting to list buy haven't forgotten how to do.  You need me, and I need to feel that thrill again.  Everything else has grown stale.  And I do not fear death.

My name is Charles, or Charlie if I like you.  I used to be in the army, active duty, so I'm smart enough to take orders and clever enough to improvise when needed.  I'm guessing that most of the applications you guys get are from desperate or crazy people.  People who have lost all hope.  People who want one last thrill in life, or don't even know what they want.  People who have illusions of grandeur but don't understand what they'd be fighting for.  I am none of those people.  I know what you really are, and I more than approve, I wish I had started it.  But since I didn't start it, all I can do now is join you.  Even if you don't accept me into your inner circle, I will do all I can to fight for you.  I know you try to keep it a secret, but I know that your cause is just and noble and something worth fighting for.  Most people come to you wanting to die, but I come to you wanting to live, and to give that life to others, others who won't even know what I did to help them.  I don't need you and maybe you don't even need me, but I want to be a part of what you are.  I want to help.  And I think that desire is something you won't get from anyone else you applies this way.