MidReal Story
Unwritten Destiny
Scenario: I'm living Gods story
Create my version of this story
Professor Michael Jameson
mentor to Ethan, colleague of Sarah, older with greying hair, wise and enigmatic.
Sarah Jennings
Ethan's confidante and love interest, best friends with Ethan, petite with curly blonde hair, optimistic and supportive.
Ethan Clarke
central character, friends with Sarah and mentored by Professor Jameson, tall with dark hair, introspective and rebellious.
I first found the book on a bench in the park.
It was a small, leather-bound volume, and it looked old, like it had been sitting there for years.
I picked it up and opened it to the first page.
There was no title, no author name—just a single sentence:
Ethan Clarke will pick up this book and read it.
I frowned and turned the page.
Ethan Clarke will turn the page.
I hesitated, then flipped to the next page.
Ethan Clarke will hesitate, then flip to the next page.
I slammed the book shut and looked around wildly, half-expecting to see someone watching me from behind a tree or a bush.
But there was no one in sight.
It was just me and the birds and the squirrels—and apparently this creepy book that knew my name and what I was going to do next.
I opened it again and read the next line:
Well, I wasn’t going to do it.
I was going to put the book down and run.
That would show it.
Ethan Clarke will put the book down and run.
I did it anyway.
I thought as I ran, not really believing it.
How could a book do that?
The whole thing was ridiculous.
And yet, as I ran, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something very wrong with the world.
I didn’t stop running until I reached my apartment.
I went inside and locked the door and sat down on the couch to catch my breath.
I felt like I was going crazy.
The book had just been sitting there on that bench, waiting for me to find it.
So what would have happened if I hadn’t picked it up?
Would it still be sitting there now, waiting for me or someone like me to come along?
And what kind of a book was it, anyway?
A book about me?
A book that knew what I was going to do before I did it?
I opened it again and read the next line:
Ethan Clarke will read this next line.
I slammed the book shut again, but not before I’d read it, of course.
This was ridiculous.
I couldn’t believe this was happening.
But even as I thought that, I knew exactly what I was going to do next: I was going to open the book again and keep reading it until I reached the end.
Ethan Clarke will open this book again and keep reading it until he reaches the end.
I hesitated for a moment, but then reluctantly opened the book again and read: Ethan Clarke will hesitate for a moment, then open this book again and keep reading it until he reaches the end.
I slammed it shut again, but once more, not before I’d read it.
This is ridiculous, I told myself again as I opened the book yet again.
And yet I couldn’t stop myself from doing exactly what the book said I would.
As I turned the page and kept reading, I found myself wondering what would happen when I finally reached the end of the book.
Would it just stop telling me what to do?
Or would something else happen?
Ethan Clarke will wonder what will happen when he reaches the end of this book.
Something else happened.
Ethan Clarke will realize he is not alone in living inside a book—and that there are others who have been living inside books too for a very long time.
If my life really was some kind of story that had already been written—then what exactly was I supposed to do with that information?
I mean, if someone else was in control of my life and making all my decisions for me, then did any of those decisions really matter?
And if they didn’t, then what was the point of making them at all?
It was enough to make your head spin—or at least mine was spinning as I sat there on my couch, staring at that weird little book and wondering if maybe I really was going crazy after all.
What should I do?”
I whispered to myself the way you might ask a friend for advice—except I didn’t have any friends who could help me with this particular problem.
So instead I just sat there like an idiot, waiting for some kind of answer to come to me out of thin air—even though I knew perfectly well that wasn’t going to happen either.
But what were my other options?
If my life had already been written by someone else—if all my choices and actions had already been decided for me—then what was left for me to do besides sit here on my couch like an idiot and wait for further instructions?
And how pathetic was that, really?
I’m sorry, but that’s just not how I roll.
I may have been feeling a little bit overwhelmed and out of my depth at that moment, but that doesn’t mean I’m a quitter or a crybaby or some kind of wimp who can’t handle his business.
So after a few more seconds of sitting there like an idiot, waiting for something to happen that clearly wasn’t going to happen, I stood up, set my jaw, and told myself to stop acting like an idiot.
And then I went and did something about it.
I went and got my phone off the kitchen counter and called Sarah.
Sarah Jennings,” she answered on the first ring, like she always did.
“Hi,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“I’m just sitting around watching TV.”
“Can you meet me?”
“Sure,” she said.
“What’s going on?”
I hesitated for a moment, then told her: “I need your help.”
She said she would be right over and we hung up.
Then I went into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and tried to come up with some kind of a plan.
If the world was really as messed up as it seemed, then I figured I had two choices: I could either go back to my couch and wait around to see what happened next, or I could get up and do something about it while I still could.
And like I said before, that’s just not how I roll.
So when Sarah showed up at my apartment five minutes later, I was ready to go.
We said hi, we hugged, we went outside, and we started walking down the street without saying another word.
I didn’t know where we were going, but I didn’t have to ask her, either.
Sarah knew me well enough by now that I didn’t have to explain myself every time I needed her help with something.
The book was lying on my desk when I left my apartment that afternoon, closed and silent, like it always was, but somehow it still felt like it was watching me, staring at me through the wall and waiting for me to come back so it could feed me more of its poisonous lies.
Sometimes it felt like it was trying to play me, trying to mess with my head and make me think things that weren’t true, but other times it felt like it was trying to control me, trying to take over my body and make me do things against my will, just so it could watch me squirm and suffer in the process.
That made it hard to concentrate on anything else, even when there was something else that I needed to concentrate on, so by the time Sarah showed up at my apartment, I was already starting to lose my grip on my plan.
I was already starting to feel like my thoughts weren’t my own anymore, like they were being manipulated by some outside force that was watching me and judging every single thing that I did, no matter how big or small.
I couldn’t even brush my teeth anymore without feeling like I was being watched, like something was waiting to jump out of the shadows at any moment and tell me what to do next.
And then it would watch me do it all over again, just to see how far it could push me before I broke.
I don’t know where that thing came from or who put it there, but after reading a few more pages of its book, all I knew for sure was that it had me pegged.
It knew me better than anybody else in the world ever could, right down to the tiniest little detail.
It knew what I was going to do before I did it; it knew what I was thinking before I thought it; it even knew what I wanted before I knew myself.
And as much as I didn’t want to admit it to myself—or to anybody else, for that matter—something about that scared the hell out of me.
“Sarah,” I said after she’d been walking beside me for a few minutes.
She looked at me and smiled.
“Did you know that you always smile when you’re upset?”
I said to her, even though she hadn’t said anything yet.
“Does he know that?”
she asked me after a moment.
I shook my head and kept on walking.
I don’t think so.”
We walked for another block or two before she finally asked: “So where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I thought maybe we could get a coffee or something.”
“Sure,” she said.
“That sounds great.”
And for a while there, it really did feel great—just like old times—but after a few more minutes of walking down the street together with her hand locked in mine, things started to get weird again.
I started to get paranoid again, wondering if somebody was watching us from behind a building or from inside a car or from the other side of the street.
