Martin's Flash Fiction - 3. Chapter 3 - An Author's Struggle

I sit, stare and touch pen to paper...

...and suddenly I am racing through blackness, the void of a world yet to be created. The power to create at will flows through me, and I sigh. First, a world is written. It is very much like ours, except smaller and a bit fuzzier around the edges. Detail is irrelevant. Moving in closer, a town is written, followed by two people. Young adults, students probably. I think for a moment and then one becomes short, thin and slightly effeminate whilst the other becomes tall and strong. They both look blank for a moment, before turning to each other as the tall one begins to speak.

“Hello, you must be the new kid at college. I hope we can be good friends”.

“Yes, me too” says Chris, the short one, before frowning for a moment. “Actually, wait a second... no offense but you really don’t look like you have the same interests as me.”

“No, you’re right....ummm...” the tall one frowns for a moment before looking up at me. “Hey! You! Mr. Creator man. You aren’t trying to fix us up here are you?”

This was unexpected, to say the least. I inform the tall one that I’ll do whatever I bloody well want with them. It’s my story.

“Oh I see”, mutters Chris, sarcastically, “I’m the new kid in college. As such, this guy will help me find my bearings and we’ll fall deeply in love. That’ll then probably be followed by twenty-seven chapters worth of increasingly tangential storylines which merely provide a backdrop for us to fuck like rabbits. I know what type of story you’re trying to write here and I’m telling you right now, I’m not having any part of it.”

“Yeah,” chips in the tall guy, “Call yourself a writer? I don’t even have a name!”

My pen touches to paper once more, this time a bit irritably. The short guy is now named Robert and he better be satisfied. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother. I give them life and they can’t even show a bit of thanks.

“What have we to be thankful for?” shouts Robert into the sky, “I mean? Robert?! Oh yeah, I bet you were up all night thinking about that one. I assume my parents are nameless as well. I certainly don’t know what they’re called.”

I rapidly write into existence Robert’s parents, who are called Bob and...ummm...Bobette. Probably. Does it really matter?

“Does it matter?” asks Chris. “They're his parents and you can’t even be arsed thinking up a name for them. No, sod you. Buggered if I’m following your sordid little plot. Besides, I don’t even think I’m gay”.

“Are you not?” asks Robert, looking over in surprise. “Oh well, fair enough. To be honest you wouldn’t really have been my type anyway. It probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind if that prick in the sky hadn’t made it.”

By this point it is fair to say that I’m getting really annoyed at Chris. Of course he’s gay. He’s the slightly effeminate one who’ll probably get bullied at one point, but it’ll all be fine in the end. Robert’ll romantically save him or something.

“Oh that’s just great, isn’t it!” Chris shouts out. “You just think that if I’m a bit...well...ok, a bit camp...that it means I’m gay! Well, for your information I’m not!”

I give out an exasperated sigh. You know what, you two? I give up. If you’re going to be so bloody awkward then I’m not even going to bother. I quickly write into existence a huge cloud of meteors and then fling them into the planet, completely disintegrating it...

“...Crying out loud”, I mutter, “That’s the seventh time this week the characters have rebelled against the plot. I wonder if this is what writers mean when they say that a story was ‘too awkward to continue’ and stuff like that.”