I recently wrote my very first short story. According to standards I read on the Internet (insert snarky Internet comment here) what I’ve written previously would be called flash fiction or short shorts according to word count. I wanted to shoot for something longer so I aimed for 7000 words which is the most liberal requirement for a short story. I wrote it, I posted it, I danced around, I was very excited. Working towards a bigger goal made me slow down and give the story more space to grow and breathe. It gave me more space to get you, the reader, to understand my character and his situation. It gave me more time to yell at him because he wasn’t doing what I wanted him to.

He’s my character, right? I made him, I named him, I figured out what he looked like and how he talked. He’s my creation; I should be able to tell him what to do. I should be able to steer him onto the path I want. For crying out loud, the words that described his sorry life came out of my head. I should have had a big say in his life. But after I made him and figured him out he just went his own way.

He decided his reactions to the obstacles I put in his way. He, Adam, decided what to shoot for and what to settle for. He decided when to give up and what that looked like. I was so mad at him because he was being so stupid about everything. He was sulking and pouting and hating his life and there was nothing I could do about it.

I had something good planned for him, too. Not necessarily what he’d been working for, but something really, really good. At the end of the story he would be happy. He could have been happy in the beginning and middle, too, if he hadn’t been being such a moron. I had a great plan all lined up for him if I could only get him to do what I wanted.

There was one thing I could do about it. I could completely rewrite him and force him to do what I wanted him to, but then he wouldn’t be Adam anymore. I would have broken him to get him to stop being stupid which is kinda what I did to him through the stuff that happens in the story. But he had to work through his struggles as Adam in order to arrive at a good place and still be Adam. To tell the story I wanted I had to let him be himself, stupidity and all, while I guided him through to the end. I wonder if that frustration is a bit like what it feels like for God.

(Here’s where the possibility of heresy comes in. Just hear me out, okay?)

God makes us. He decides what we look like and what our situations will be. And then He watches while we totally screw up our lives. We wallow in our mistakes and get up only to make new mistakes. Our decisions hurt everyone around us and ruin the story. There’s something good waiting for us at the end, or the middle or the beginning, but we’re so bull-headed we have to slog all the way to the end to get it.

God made us, right? We’re His creations, His characters in His story and He really should be able to make us bend to His will. He should be able to dictate our every move. Which isn’t to say that He is unable; it’s just to say that I kinda understand why He doesn’t sometimes. There are times that bending us will actually break us. We are too stiff and too stubborn to just bend. So sometimes He leaves us like that for a while. He lets us wallow in our self-pity when our story doesn’t go how we’re wanting it to. But sometimes He decides that we are going to bend. So He breaks us a little to makes us more bendable in the end. Who we are gets changed a bit so that who we are will bend to the will of our Author.

I didn’t do that to Adam because I’m just writing a piece of fiction and Adam’s stupidity made it that much more interesting. God is writing history. Sometimes our stupidity makes His story more interesting, but other times the next act of His story involves us learning to bend.

It must be so frustrating. I had a something good ready for Adam when he would just pull it together enough to want it. I was practically yelling at my computer screen, trying to get Adam to stop wallowing and enjoy what I had ready for him. Imagine being God. He has the best, the finest, the most perfect waiting for us. It’s beyond my powers of description to write about what our Author has in the works. If we would just stop being morons long enough to want it, to accept it. It makes me even more impressed with His patience. The Author is writing a story that will take all of time to finish and He’s chosen us poor fools as His characters. We’re what He has to work with to make a masterpiece. He picked us special and is going to write a classic with us.

I’ve got no fears that He’ll end up with the story He wanted all along. He’s the Master, the Great Storyteller. He’s got all the time in the world and all the words He needs to write up one great wonder of a story.

I am now going to inflict on all of you a nifty thing I discovered about the game that most of you will really not care about.

So, in this game, I am playing the healer, Rosie. This is amusing, simply because I’m pretty much playing Gabrielle’s default character, who is far nicer than my default character. This is important, because of this one specific moment during the same fight Gabrielle wrote about. It’s nearing the end of the fight, we’re not doing so well, and I have a choice. I can take the ‘desperate last stand’ action and roll some dice that have a tiny chance of make the next round of fighting slightly less bad for us. Or, I can essentially throw this round instead of making the team effort, and gain two check marks, which represent my ability to do stuff when this mission is over.

I look at my sheet. My default character would totally make a desperate last stand right now. But Rosie? Sweet Rosie, whose Compassionate trait is about to mess up this fight for everyone in order gain the ability to do two things after the mission is over. So she looks at the raven we’re fighting, and for just those few seconds when she should be fighting, she feels sorry for the poor raven.

Fastforward to the end of the mission. Finn has stepped up and beaten the bird, we’ve successfully completed what we set out to do, and several of the party are sick or injured as a result. Getting better requires a successful roll, the greatest chance of success comes if the healer’s the one rolling, every roll requires a checkmark.

So… In the end, the only reason Rosie can actually help heal anyone–is because she also felt sorry for the raven.

I love this game.

As I licked the sticky residue off my fingers I realized something: I’m eating sugar! Six months ago, that incident would initiated a sigh and trip to the sink lest I accidentally ingest a half gram of sugar. Besides that, I actually got to put jam on my toast this morning. On purpose!

Yesterday I started writing a poem in my head while driving, and wrote it down at a couple of stoplights and in a waiting room, which made me feel very artsy.

Just found out
there’s a blue sky today
world keeps humming
maybe I’ll hum along
Well, maybe I can’t fly
but the sun’s shining down
the clouds are flying high
Just found out
I’m not going down
today’s a day to be alive
and maybe I can’t fly
but if I try real hard
maybe I can dance
and if I let it go
forget to think so hard
watch the clouds
and feel the sun
I know that I can dance

I’m staring at a smear

on the window

‘remember me’

if only it were that easy

bouncing on the playground horse

she laughs

from the drinking fountain

wind blows hair in my face

The two ships floated in the midst of the asteroid field. Neither of them had any control, any propulsion, but the comm link was still strong. Ty was the first to break the silence.

“I never thought I’d die like this, y’know.”

“What, in a dead ship leaking oxygen?”

“Well, yeah, I kinda thought I’d die like that. I meant more the being hunted by an old girlfriend.”

Anna laughed. Ty’s eyes opened wide as he finally heard her laugh.

“Anna, I tried so hard before to make you laugh.” Ty sighed. “I always knew your laugh would be beautiful.”

Anna looked around, but Ty’s ship was still drifting just out of sight. She wished she could see him, make sure he was okay.

“Ty, I’m so sorry.”

He snorted a short laugh. “’Bout time.”

Ty looked at the crack growing in his windshield, at the slowly pulsing star and all the drifting rocks.

“It’s actually quite pretty, Anna,” he said.

“What is, Ty?” she asked. He didn’t answer. All she heard over the comm was a sudden crackle and a hiss. “Ty? Ty!” Anna panicked. “Ty, you answer me! Ty!”

Something drifted by her ship, a figure shorter than average. It drifted out towards the sun and Anna was left all alone in the asteroid field with only the sound of static to comfort her.

******************

Anna found the apartment she was looking for on the wrong side of town. It was just a few teensy steps away from being a full slum. She knocked on the door and tried to look in all directions at once. When Ty opened the door she pushed past him into the apartment.

“Look,” she said before he could start, “This is just getting silly. Graduation was a full week ago and people are starting to get hurt by the stunts you keep pulling.”

Ty stood by the door, angry, belligerent. “So, what do you recommend we do about it?”

Anna looked him straight in the eye. “We finish it.”

Ty considered. “Okay,” he said.

So they snuck onto the base, stole two ships and headed out to the asteroid field.