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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Greenland, Greenwich, Sandwich
Gender: Male
Posts: 394
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World on a String... By Anthony Smith and Chris Cruz
The World on a String…
By
Anthony Smith
Edited by
Christopher Lee Mark De La Cruz
“Stop fooling around Jim, its time to go.” Kate was already slightly agitated, and Jim’s dawdling only made her more so.
“Kate,” he began in a very somber, ominous tone from his corner of the room. “You’re rushing too much again. You’ve gotta stop and enjoy life a bit before you rush right into your grave.”
“Yeah, ok. Now would you change into some nice clothes and get a move on? We’re going to be late.” She couldn’t help it; she was always in a hurry. "Just like everyone else", she thought. Except Jim. “What are you doing in the dark anyhow?”
“Contemplating the destruction of the world… What are we going to be late for?”
Kate turned on the living-room lights to find Jim dressed in a fine, three-piece Tuxedo and sitting calmly, patiently in his large, black armchair. His demeanor was almost divine; large legs and arms at his sides, hair slicked back, sitting with perfect posture. And in his right hand was a tiny earth the size of a baseball, resting like some toy globe. It was so detailed that its clouds even seemed to be moving.
“You’re overdressed.” For some odd reason, the image of Jim sitting there looking godlike and brandishing a planet in his hand made her skin crawl.
“I wanted to look nice for the end.”
“The end of what?”
“The world.”
Kate laughed but it was a shaken laughter. She wasn’t about to worry about such frail things as a small planet, but Jim had been acting strange recently. He was usually cheerful and always smiling, but had recently gone sour. Jim had always been a mystery though, even in marriage. He came out of the blue and Kate loved him for that, for just being there. Jim was always a wonderful listener, the very best.
“Hurry up and change, Matt and Beth are gonna be waiting for us at the restaurant.”
“Its funny, I just can't seem to care about them any more.” Kate was unable to respond to such a statement. One of Jim’s greatest qualities was that he cared for and even seemed to love everyone.
“What would you do, Kate, if something that you created that was once so beautiful slowly became corrupted and ugly? As if all the goodness had been drowned out by the evil.”
“I don’t understand.” She suddenly felt like one of the people who had missed the Ark, drowning, sinking into worry and confusion.
“Take, for example, the Earth. When it was made it was filled with wonderful things; the plants, the animals, even decent people for a bit. But after a while it choked on mankind, and mankind choked on the world. Now all the beauty that remains is ignored by people who are in too much of a hurry to try and escape the madness and darkness they have created from its original light.”
“Are you trying to say that you could have made a better world?” She asked incredulously.
“No, I’m just asking you a question. What would you do?”
“Well,” she was ready to answer, but her tears and emotions began to strangle her voice. She wondered if this was how all divorces began. "No", she thought, "we can fix it." “Well, I would try to make things right.”
“What if you had tried so many times already and you knew that it would never make a difference?” The clouds on the globe swelled and sobbed along with Kate now as her tears fell like rain.
She swallowed a hard lump, finding it difficult to remain standing while her life fell apart. “Are all the good things gone?”
“No, not all of them. But there isn’t any real hope left.”
“Then can’t you focus on the good things… please?” She was a mess now, sobbing and silently begging on the floor for things not to end so.
“I can, yes. But what if even one of the many evils caused more pain than all the good combined?”
Kate broke, losing her hope at last, convinced that she was hurting the one thing she could ever truly love. “Then I might give up…” The world’s darkness and its horrid reality caved in on her, with her. Her marriage had fallen apart behind her back and it was reaching its final destination. Kate was a wretched angel, cast from a heaven of love to burn on the floor of their apartment. And all the while Jim sat above her. An unreachable Lord Almighty of whom she had carried in her heart but was suddenly forsaken from his. He began to spin the world with his fingers, slowly, and he looked down upon it with the sad eyes of a creator about to take the role of the Apocalypse.
“But,” she heaved with sadness, and moaned out her last plea. “But don’t I make you happy?”
Jim was shocked by the question. “You, why of course you do.” Realization dawned on his face, as did the morning sun, along with a Father’s smile. “Kate, I love you, like the others. And I love you like a wife as well.” He reached down and wiped the dampness from her eyes.
She managed to control her sobbing but tears of happiness or bewilderment still streamed from her face. “But Jim, what’s this all about?”
“This!” He held forth, in his palm, a living creation. Kate could see the further details of his expensive toy. It had cloud patterns and thunder storms in very high resolutions.
Then an idea struck her, the complexity of it tore at her mind; she passed it off as a stress-induced delusion.
“What would you do Kate, if you could make it all better, everything? By simply destroying your creation?”
“I don’t want to answer that, neither of us is God.” And in the relief of the saved marriage she added, “I love you so much Jim.” She could barely understand why Jim had suddenly become so philosophical, but it didn’t matter. She would play along with whatever game would please him, not because she understood, but because that was what she thought he wanted.
“Then you truly have nothing to fear. What would you do?”
“I would probably destroy the creation but I don’t think God will be doing that any time soon.”
“He might.” And with that, Jim closed his fist on the earth and the light was turned to darkness.
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Last edited by Nikatu : 10-31-2006 at 03:54 PM.
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