Erase and start again
“Did you finally finish writing that story? We need to publish a new book soon or your readers will forget about you!” the manager asked Jeff. His last book was published five hears ago. He knew he had to write something new, but there was a small problem. How should he explain it without sounding crazy? “Well, not really. I’m almost done, though. Don’t worry!” “Those are the exact words you said a year ago!” “I know, but it’s the truth!” His manager shook his head. They were having the same discussion every month. “What takes you so long?” “Well, I’m almost done, but I deleted two chapters yesterday because they didn’t lead me to the right ending.” A short silence made the situation a bit uncomfortable. Jeff looked around before continuing to explain. “However, something weird happened today while I was sleeping. When I woke up, my story had a new chapter that I didn’t write.” “Jeff, I’m sorry if I’m putting you under too much pressure and make you go crazy.” " I’m not crazy, this really happened! I can even show you the chapter, it’s not my writing style!" His manager laughed but then shrugs and nodes. “Show me, it can’t be worse than the last chapter you gave me to read.” So Jeff showed him the chapter on his phone:
Just before dinner was ready, Cara sat down at her desk, grabbing her pen and a sheet of paper. No, she didn’t want to do her homework. She wrote down something much more important:
"Life got so boring here lately. Since Monday, nothing has happened, we’re all just following our daily routine. Before that, we had a lot of drama and fun. Now there are no fights, no arguments, no declarations of love, no happy endings and no twists. I know what you think now: Why don’t we just do something exciting? The answer is easy: We can’t decide what we want to do. In this city, nobody knows what we’ll do next. It’s as if someone was planning our story and we just follow a script that we don’t have.
I can assure you, this life isn’t bad. Honestly, it was quite enjoyable before the “Great Emptiness” started. I often get surprised by my own actions or other people’s changing personalities. In this city, the shy girl can become the queen of school in just one day! Some people just disappear without a warning. Others appear all of a sudden and act as if they’ve been here all the time.
Some nights, when nothing special happens, we only have a few seconds of darkness and then the sun rises again. In contrast, some sunsets take much longer than the rest of the day. If something really exciting happens, like a fight, then we even get to live in slow-motion. This sounds weird to you, doesn’t it? Well, there’s much more going on here!
Everyone here knows how this Great Emptiness will end. It has happened already several times. Whenever nothing happens anymore, we get sent back to the time when everything was still exciting. It’s a bit like time travelling, but we can’t travel to the future and we can never decide how far into the past we travel.
However, this will change today. I won’t let somebody erase my life, even though the last days were boring. I will take action by using my own will! Everyone thinks I’m going crazy because I’m talking about changing the script of our lives. Although they all doubt the existence of someone who writes our script, I will add this little letter to the script and make our author aware of our situation.
This person has to realize that we don’t enjoy starting over and over again, being sent back in time. If you’re out of ideas, then just stop writing and find some new inspirations! Maybe let us do whatever we want from time to time. Who knows, we might end up where you want us to be even when you’re not controlling our actions. You gave us our personality, now let us decide what we do with it! Thanks for your consideration and have a nice day.”
Cara put away the pen and smiled at her letter. Her mother called for her, telling her that the food was ready but Cara decided not to run to the kitchen right away. Instead, she stayed in her room and stared at the letter, waiting for a reply, a sign, anything.
“There, do you see it? That’s not what I would write!” Jeff was as confused as his manager. “I guess you might be right, this doesn’t look like something you’d write. Maybe you got hacked? Or your girlfriend wanted to be funny.” “She wouldn’t do that!” Jeff knew there was no chance at finding the one who wrote that, but it felt like a direct message for him. “What should I do with it?” he asked his manager. “I don’t know, it’s your story. I would just keep writing and finally finish the book. You know what they say: Every ending is a new beginning.” “You might be right, but I don’t want that chapter in my story. Honestly, I don’t even want that whole story. I’ll erase it and start again.” His manager shook his head, knowing that Jeff will probably never finish that book.
A few minutes later, Jeff had a weird feeling when he deleted every chapter of his story. He wanted a new beginning, but it felt like more than just one new beginning. He felt as if he was destroying someone else’s life.
And Cara? Cara was just waiting for her life to get set back to the start. She knew she’ll lose all the relationships she had built up in the previous days. All her efforts, her work, her progress, it was all for nothing. A new beginning for everyone in her world. A new beginning for the author of their script.
