The Writer

by AngusEcrivain

The Writer watched as the otherwise blank screen was slowly filled with the magic of his words, as before his very eyes worlds were built and creatures and men were killed in equal, unbiased numbers.

Outside the planet might well have been dying thanks in no small part to the hitherto unprecedented expansion of the Sol star, the Sun having already claimed Mercury, but in his fully air-conditioned bedsit, the Writer did not care.

Other than the fact one of his grandparents had mined Mercury for a period, the former planet held no meaning to him at all.

Nor did he care for the ever-expanding Sun that would destroy every trace of life upon Earth within a decade, long before it engulfed the planet itself.

All the Writer cared about was his words...

***

As he sat there, scratching his testicles through the hand-sized hole in the crotch of his jeans and knocking back his seventh can of triple strength lager, Brian really could not help but think how low the standard of viewing material had dropped. He was fairly certain, in fact, as he watched season three episode four, A Small Family Hatchback & A Packet of Jelly Babies, of the number one streamed show for the last two years, Things I Can Fit In My Anus, starring none other than Academy Award winning actress, humanitarian and alleged superhero, Ade-Laide, that it was not possible for it to reach a lower point, until he remembered the trailer for the upcoming show, Two Camels, a Girl and a Pizza Place, a remake, apparently, of a popular show from the late 1990s, some two hundred years prior.

The show ended after Ade-Laide shat out the last of the jelly babies and Brian drained the can, got to his feet and made his way over to the window.

Most of the city was in darkness thanks to the rolling blackouts, a direct result of there being far too many people, all of whom possessed countless electronic devices, and power being produced at too slow a rate to be able to cope.

He checked his watch. Three hours until the blackout reached the district in which he lived but Brian was sleepy and yawned loudly to accentuate that fact, probably due to the small amount of blood in his triple strength lager stream, so he quickly made his way power box situated upon the wall outside his bathroom and set it to send three hours worth of power back to the grid, thus adding to his ever-maturing end of year bonus.

***

The Writer screwed up his face in disgust, wondering for a brief moment where some of his ideas, where many of the things about which he wrote, came from. It was a familiar feeling for him, as his words often appeared random and nonsensical.

He was, however, a firm believer in the fact that one needed to get rid of the crap in one's mind before one could write anything half-decent and the vast majority of the words he wrote, he figured fell into that category.

The Writer got to his feet and stretched satisfactorily, then rubbed his stubbled chin. What he really needed was a coffee but a glance towards his 101 Coffeemate told him there was nowhere near enough water for such a thing and he cursed, silently.

It was his own fault, of course, for after several years of water rationing he had still not managed to get to grips with having enough H20 for only two cups of coffee every twenty-four hours.

Coffee would have to wait.

***

I remember that day like it was yesterday but the fact is I honestly couldn't tell you how long ago it happened.

The outbreak... The day the zombies took over... The day the world turned upside down...

There'd been talk of a group of scientists working out of a lab in Kazakhstan who'd managed develop some kinda' extinction level virus, the kinda' virus that'd make the Spanish Flu look like a mild case of headlice at a primary school.

Of course, by the time anyone realised the existence of such a virus was a bad thing it was too late and when it got out it spread across Asia like the plague. Within days every continent was affected.

Militaries and health organisations the world over were overwhelmed. Like fools they attempted to herd what remained of humanity into camps and facilities.

Only those who managed to keep away from all of that, who managed to stay away from camps and facilities survived...

I've no idea how many of us are left now but I'd be surprised if there are more than 10,000 humans left alive...

Every day is a struggle to survive. All we can do is fight, and hope...

***

He knew that kind of thing would have been popular, once upon a time. Back before Earth was actually coming to a visible end, stories of apocalypses were all the rage and generally involved a group of heroes fighting to survive against the elements, the establishment or the monsters.

There was nothing to fight against anymore though. The only true enemy was time, and that was one foe that really was invincible but despite that fact, the Writer fell asleep at his keyboard.

He awoke a matter of hours later, though he did not know for exactly how many hours he had slept.

The Writer stood and made his way out to the villa's balcony, overlooking the receding ocean. It was not too long ago, only a matter of years, that the villa was a beachfront residence but now, it sat some two hundred feet above sea level.

A ding inside put a smile upon his face, for it meant his daily water ration was available and he quickly went to the 101 Coffeemate, removed the container and held it beneath the tap, not wanting to waste a single drop before turning it on.

With a freshly brewed mug of coffee steaming at his right hand, the Writer set about writing once more.

***

"D'you wanna' drink?"

"Excuse me?"

"I asked if you wanted a drink. You look thirsty."

"I am to be fair, but it's a fair old while since a drop dead gorgeous woman has offered to buy me something."

"Well I think it's about time we rectified that, eh?"

"Sure... I'm drinking Grolsch."

"Two beers, barkeep!"

"Thanks, very decent of you. So what's with the slogan?"

"Excuse me?"

"The slogan, on your t-shirt: I'm Actually God. Ask Me How."

"Would you have preferred I put on my Jesus is a Cunt hoodie?"

"Well I was partial to Cradle, back in the day."

"As was I. Dani Filth's voice is to this day one of my favourite creations."

"Excuse me?"

"Well... I mean I'm not wearing this t-shirt ironically. I genuinely am God."

"Pah! Fuck off."

"Which is why I love talking to atheists. Y'all don't fuck around."

"..."

"You have no questions?"

"To be fair I was hoping the evening would wind up with you noshing me off in the lavvy."

"It still might, yet."

"All right, all right... Riddle me this, God. All the shit that goes on in the world; folk killing folk and whatnot, all in your name..."

"You want to know why?"

"Suppose it'd be a waste of an opportunity if I didn't."

"True enough. Well the answer's a simple one. I don't control people. Never have and I couldn't even if I wanted to, which I don't. See, that's the beauty of free will. People are free and able to do whatever the fuck they want. It's not my place to ruin their fun, even if that fun is had at the expense of others."

"That's pretty twisted."

"Oh they get their comeuppance in the end. Trust me, my boy takes great pleasure in torturing folk, especially child molestors, rapists and whatnot, and he's very, very good at it."

"And the victims?"

"As sad a state of affairs as it may be, I cannot involve myself in the matters of men... I tried that once before and suffice it to say, it didn't end well."

"What do you mean, you tried it once before?"

"Well you're not arrogant enough to think you're the first, are you? Humanity, I mean. There are billions of inhabited planets in the Universe, maybe even trillions, with just as many sentient races."

"Logic dictates that'd be the case, sure. Any of those sentient races human?"

"A fair few. It seems to be one of evolution's preferences."

"Oh so evolution's real, eh? Well that's good to know."

"Of course evolution's real, for fuck's sake. How else do you explain the dinosaurs? You're not one of those folk who thinks fossils were put in the ground as some kinda' joke and that the Earth is only six thousand years old, are you?"

"Nope... Atheist, remember. Besides, the fact Earth is about four and a half billion years old is irrefutable, I'd say."

***

The Writer sat back and grinned widely, before he raised the mug to his lips and gulped down the warm liquid.

If he had more time, he suspected his latest offering to the Gods of Literature might hold some potential, but that was something he most definitely did not have.

Outside a klaxon sounded and the Writer sighed, heavily. The planet was on a schedule of rolling blackouts as those governments who remained attempted in vain to prolong the life of Earth and her residents, and that meant for the next twenty-four hours, he would not be able to do anything that required power.

Deciding the mandatory power outage was the perfect excuse to go for a walk, the Writer put on a pair of shorts and his sandals and made his way outside. In the heat of the day it was baking and he kept the shade wherever possible as he made his way down the mountainside.

Soon he arrived upon the beach, where those who did not wish to spend the power outage staring at their own four walls generally convened.

Some distance away a group of men and women alike fawned over a guitarist, an individual playing some old folk song about being a long way from home.

When those gathered noticed the Writer though, they slowly but surely made their way towards him, the guitarist included, and insisted he tell them a story. He reluctantly agreed.

***

"Eureka!" Archimedes exclaimed, but that was the last word he ever uttered, unless one counts the screams and gurgles which were in truth cries for help as an invisible force held his head beneath the water whilst his arms and legs flailed, thus leaving other learned men of the age to discover such things as water displacement, upthrust and what-have-you.

Had he not drowned on that particular day or to be more accurate, had he not been drowned, then that would have been the point that human history veered off on a somewhat unlikely tangent. It would have altered everything.

In fact it was not until 350 CE, some five hundred years after his death, that his real work was discovered though unfortunately, that discovery was made by a young girl, a street rat, who knew not what she had chanced upon.

Though she may not have understood the half-millennia old scrawl, that did not prevent the young girl from drowning in the Gulf of Syracuse.

Her body was never found and Archimedes work was never seen again until in its original Koine, it appeared in the house of one Giles Corey in September of 1692. Unfortunately, that occurred whilst the man was being pressed to death having been accused of witchcraft.

Three days later, an escaped slave stumbled into the Corey's abandoned farmhouse and chanced upon Archimedes' work. Though the scrawled words meant little to him and made no sense whatsoever he understood them perfectly and at once, he knew what he needed to do.

And that is how, at the Great Exhibition in London, 1851, a man from Exeter had on display something that would alter humanity's course and propel the human race to the stars.

"How did you come to design and build such a... a... device?" Queen Victoria asked of the man, for she was in attendance.

"Would you believe me if I said it was magic, Your Majesty?" the man asked in reply, an utterance that caused laughter to ripple around the exhibition hall.

"Technological advancements and magic are quite often indistinguishable," she replied, quite sincerely.

"Truer words ne'er spoken," he said, though of course it was magic or at least, a part of it was. How else could he have remained young for almost two hundred years? "Would you care for a demonstration, Your Majesty?"

There was a darkness in his eyes but the Monarch did not see it. Had she done so she would likely have cowered in fear at the state of the man's soul for the invisible force that had claimed the lives of others before him had taken control of the former slave's being, had given him insights and knowledge that he would otherwise have had no chance whatsoever of gleaning, had made him the single most powerful man on the planet, and yet...

The very second the former slave activated the device a dozen metallic objects, each a mile long and a half mile wide, appeared in the sky above the exhibition hall, drawing gasps of fear and wonder from a large amount of exhibition-goers.

A single gunshot brought the vast amount back to reality, or what would thereafter count for reality, and Samuel Colt stood with smoking gun in hand as the former slave lay dead at the feet of Queen Victoria.

"He's not human, Your Highness." Colt's drawl echoed throughout the hall, just as the gunshot had. "Look into his eyes and tell me I didn't just save your life."

Unaccustomed to receiving orders the Monarch obeyed...

***

"Well, that one's lost even me." The Writer chuckled, shaking his head, slowly, as those gathered gently applauded. "I guess that's what I get for making shit up on the spot."

"Another," a young girl pleaded, her big brown eyes aged far more than those of any teenage eyes ought to be.

"All right," the Writer replied. "Let me see..."

***

It has often been said, by people who are prone to making such unprofound and generic statements - you know the type: "The grass is always greener on the other side," "Well you know, it takes one to know one," and "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" - that - OK, so the use of the word, 'often,' back there is wholly inaccurate, especially when one takes into account that 'people,' 'people,' in this case referring to any sentient being be they man, woman, child or other (and there really are an awful lot of 'people,' who fall into the 'other,' category - and no, I'm not talking about those folk who're confused by their penis 'cos they've always felt, since they were a teeny tiny child with teeny tiny child hands and feet small enough to mean that buying a pair of designer trainers did not require taking out a second mortgage on one's house, that their outtie really ought to be an innie or, of course, those who have always believed, those who have always known in their heart of hearts, that their innie goes the wrong way and should, in fact, be an outtie - throughout the Universe - things really are not always all that they seem.

The fact is, of course, that the aforementioned statement is, at this very point in Time and Space, that point being whatever time you are reading this - if you are, indeed, doing such a thing - combined with the location in which you are doing it, entirely true, for at first glance this may appear to be something that resembles a 'story.' Now I know, I know; for something to truly be a story it must start with the words, 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,' or, '"I love the beginning of the summer holidays, they always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages."' - hey don't look at me, I don't make the bloody rules! However, bonus points are on offer, of course, for guessing exactly whereabouts those story beginnings come from... The second one, anyways, 'cos unless you're actually dead you really ought to know the origins of the first one, and even then I suspect death really shouldn't be an excuse! - but, a reasonable proportion of the time, works that do not begin in such a manner are generally accepted as being stories, too.

This, however, is not a story. At least, it's not a story yet and let's be perfectly candid it may well never be. As everyone knows a story requires a middle, a beginning and an end - not necessarily in that order, of course - and as yet, this piece of writing possesses not a single one of those things.

Well... It does in the most literal of senses, of course; have a beginning, that is. Technically speaking it also has a middle but as for the end, well, some fucker keeps adding more and more letters and words so this piece has, in fact, had several ends, albeit each one just as temporary as the one before. There will come a point, however, when the next ending will not be temporary. One would hope, anyway, else this truly would be a Neverending Story...

Wo-ah whoa wo-ah whoa wo-ah whoa...

Of course, if you were born post 1985 you probably haven't got so much as a Scooby-fucking-Do what's going on here...

I'll be honest, that makes three of us...

But that's enough nonsense, don't you think? We should probably get this show on the road...

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - well then, I guess this is a story after all - there lived a man. Actually there lived several men; several million, in point of fact. And there lived several million women, too. Because that's just the way things were, are and always will be. In all fairness there were probably several million children as well. Maybe more, but who knows? More to the point, who cares?

But yes... A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there lived a man. He was not a particularly good man, nor was he a particularly bad man. He lived his life as he wished, generally doing so within the confines of the law and those laws he did break, including but by no means limited to movie piracy, cow tipping, actual piracy and fellating a goat whilst doing seventy-five in an eighteen wheeler, were laws that no one really gave a shit about anyway.

Eventually, because these things tend to happen, the man died. The funeral service was lovely. His widow cried and so did his youngest daughter, Lemon.

This story, though, is not about them. It is not, in fact, about anyone mentioned thus far in this tale. No, it is actually a story about Lemontea, daughter of Lemon.

Lemontea was not her real name, for that was Lemon II but when she was a small child, younger than her mother was when she cried at her father's funeral, Lemontea could not pronounce anything that made an 'ooo,' sound. She could not, for example, correctly say the following words; cool, tool, fool, too, to, two, who, imbue, Nosferatu... And therefore, because eight year old Lemon II pronounced her name, 'Lemon Tea,' Lemontea stuck.

***

"You were born in the wrong time, my friend."

The Writer glanced up from the crowd and saw an aged, bearded man.

"It is what it is, I guess," the Writer replied. "Figure I am where I'm supposed to be."

"If only that were true," said the man, his lips though obviously moving were barely visible thanks to the sheer amount of hair that adorned his face. "What if I told you it didn't have to be like this, that the world didn't have to come to an end?"

"Doesn't it?"

"This world, yes," the man conceded. "But you're a writer. You're the Writer. You know the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit. Your words have the power to change things."

"I'm well aware of the power words hold," said the Writer, nodding. "But words can't change what is, and the world is gonna' end."

"Is that a fact?" The man paused, grinning as he lit a cigarette, something to which the Writer had not borne witness for many years. "Pretty sure you just made that happen, 'cos boy I haven't smoked a day in my life."

"But..."

"Try it," the man interrupted. "Tell a story, it doesn't matter what it's about for it's the art of storytelling itself that counts."

***

At five hundred miles wide, the cave's opening was by far and away the largest such thing in existence. Situated as it was on the shoreline of an ocean once known as the Pacific Ocean, the border of two long-forgotten countries was at its centre. As the countries in question no longer existed, the concept of 'nations' having been abolished centuries prior when the realisation dawned that unless drastic changes were made then Earth was going to make humankind suffer for the shit it's most intelligent race had put it through.

And so for the first time in the history of everything, Mankind had put aside the petty differences of race, religion, colour and creed, and had built The City, an enormous continent-sized metropolis that did, indeed, cover the entire African continent.

Powered by the enormous hydro-plant situated with the five hundred mile cave, The City housed the entirety of the planet's population, all fourteen billion humans, leaving the rest of the planet to recover, to redesign and rebuild, without the interfering nature of mankind, until...

***

And the world changed and it was wonderful. Inexplicably things got better and did so very, very quickly.

The Sun receded, reverting to its more human-friendly state. The oceans began to refill, though they did so at a rate slow enough to allow those down on the beach with the Writer to reach higher ground.

Of everything that could have happened though, something that had not occurred for many years, did.

It rained. It rained and it poured and as he stood a few feet from the water's edge, surrounded by joy-filled people, the Writer looked for the bearded man.

He could not see him, in fact there was no sign he had ever existed, at least not as far as the Writer could tell and he began to think that maybe the man had been nothing more than a figment of his overactive imagination.

In fact, he was beginning to think that everything was nothing more than a figment of his overactive imagination because if the reality in which he existed, where until not too long ago Earth and everyone who called her home was dying was actually reality then he had just performed some pretty fanciful magic.

The Writer didn't believe in magic, other than that held by the written word but whatever had happened, whatever he had done if, indeed, he had done anything at all, it really was rather badass.