Chasing Beginnings

Note: This is a story I wrote for a competition based on the theme "alternate reality". Mine is one in which people know everything that is going to happen but not what has happened to them so far. This is a story that is barely real, but I also like to think that in some way, it's my story (and not just because I wrote it).

My story has no beginning.

Every writer knows that a story must have a beginning, middle and end, or it isn’t a story.

My middle is a string of ‘and thens’, just waiting to reach The End.

Every writer knows that a plot can’t just be a series of events.

Tomorrow I turn a year younger and 10 years closer to death. I die in my sleep – a rather mainstream way to go.

Every writer knows that the end should leave the reader wanting more.

I want more.

More than knowing everything that will happen to me.

I meet the man of my dreams two weeks from now (I really did dream him), in 3 years my book becomes a Number 1 Best Seller (all I have to do is write it, now) and I die in 10 years in my sleep. And with my end all sorted out, I go about my day, like everyone else, moulding myself carefully based on what I know will happen to me, obsessing over ‘what if’s and ‘should be’s even though I know I can’t change the future.

So, I do my hair differently on the day I am to meet said man, I strive harder to write things worthy of being a Bestseller, question my self-worth and make myself feel better by spending my money frivolously—I know I’ll be rich soon enough.

But it’s not enough. I want to know more. Not just where I’m headed, but where I come from and if there’s more to who I am.

Everyone knows that a good writer must have a great imagination…

Imagine if there’s a world in which everyone knows their past and not their future, where everything you did could alter your future. If only portals to alternate realities weren’t fictional.

…to write captivating fiction.

My characters have the wildest lives. They emerge on the planet carried by storks or smuggled by elves or even just found in a box.

The possibilities are limitless…

I once read a story in which a person came out from another person!

…if your own story is equally interesting.

         I’m still

Everyone says writers draw from their own lives,

                           Searching for

(Or from) what is lacking in their lives.

A story.

This is mine.

Chasing Beginnings

Endings are the things I’m most sure of. My mother died when I had 63 years left to live. In her will she left me her house, half of her money and a cryptic note which read, “You’ll understand when there’s not much time left,” along with a number. I had known I’d meet an old man who would tell me something important for a while before I read her note again.

I would soon have only 10 years left to live and there was so much to do and not enough time. I call the number.

“Name?”

A voice crackles from the other end of the phone.

I give mine.

“Child of Lerina Garcia?”

“Yes,” I reply, only slightly bewildered.

“Meet me tomorrow at 2pm at the tea garden. I’ll be in red.”

The phone disconnects before I can confirm.

But I had this meeting fixed for years and the old man on the phone knows as much.

I’m at the Tea Garden at 2 pm sharp the next day. My mysterious acquaintance has already been waiting a while. With no introduction or small talk, he sits me down next to him, stares into space and says, rather than asks,

“You are a writer.”

“Yes.”

“Like your mother.”

“Yes. You know her?

“She was a great writer.”

“You’ve read her work then?”

“You ask too many questions. You are a teller of stories. The answers you seek are yours to create.”

“It’s different when I write. I can’t make up my own story!”

“Why not? Tell me your story.”

“I don’t know it yet.”

“Create it, then. Go on, begin.”

“My story has no beginning.”

“Every writer knows that a story must have a beginning, middle and end, or it isn’t a story. “

“My middle is a string of ‘and thens’, just waiting to reach The End.”

“Every writer knows that a plot can’t just be a series of events.”

“Tomorrow I turn a year younger and 10 years closer to death. I die in my sleep – a rather mainstream way to go."

“Every writer knows that the end should leave the reader wanting more.  

Try again. Make it up as you go.”

My story begins like most stories do, right where everything began:

Once upon a time,