Our Concomitants

There is something about creating a world on an once blank page. Watching it fill with inked letters, each word dripping with imaginative intentions. This can make it daunting to share with others. It is as if you are choosing to bare your soul to criticism and judgement. There is no guarantee that they will care for the story and the characters as much as you do. 

Creating a concrete story worthy of telling is not instantaneous, nor is it always an enjoyable experience the entire time. The writer pours passion into every decision and this can lead to the impression that not everyone can understand the full extent of the turmoil it took to play this form of God. There is a level of responsibility strung to this ability to carve a person from the imagination. 

Those that can not only share but also understand the journey and burden are the story characters themselves.

It is our story being told after all.

I personally have been here from the very beginning. It had been the start of the writers very own cohort if you will. I had slowly made my way from jumbled concept’s on the back of a diner’s napkin to a vital part in the telling of the story. Not to brag or anything. I witnessed others facing similar experiences; from starting as seemly unimportant ideas to an individual with thoughts and emotions, hopes and dreams, flaws and fears. We all had been gifted with our own story to allow for us to mould the bigger story that needed to be told. It was a great honour that we carried with weight. Alongside the beauty of new life being breathed into our world came the heaviness and sorrow of watching friends and foes being made into less imperative roles or erased entirely, as if they had not existed in the first place. This often led to moments of uncertainty amongst those of us who remained. I doubt that the writer ever intended for us to feel this way.

Even I found myself wondering if I would be replaced and thrown aside one day. Would I always be inimitable? Then I would be reminded that we were created to help tell a story; to help our writer succeed to the fullest in their vision. If we were not the character to make it the best it could it be then we should not and would not be in that position. It was an honour to be considered to bring their dream to life. 

No good story was done in a single night. From the beginning to this very moment, we have grown along the way hand-in-hand with our writer; learning together as we ventured throughout this ever-evolving world. I remember the days that an ominous white wall stopped us from continuing our journey together. The anxiety and frustration it would induce as our beautiful world was cruelly ended by a void of colour or sympathy. Those were the moments that our writer needed our support the most. Having to constantly encourage and remind them of the beauty we were creating, all in the selfish hope that our world would not be barricaded by the blankness. Building a world was not easy. I imagined every unique feature; plot and character were similar to stepping stones in a rushing river that bit at your heels with frigid water, threatening to drown you into its abyss once in its unforgiving grip. Most stones held firm, others needed some more thought and love but worked out in the end, while others crumbled from under us, threatening to throw us completely off balance. But we had made it across to the other side finally. The bond of creator and creations had only grown stronger along the way. They knew everything about us down to the finer details, but little were they aware that we had learnt just as much about them – a writer puts a piece of themselves in every character after all. I would like to think that we acted as a support system of sorts whenever they felt lost or lacking control of the cruel world they resided in.

As I looked around at the world that we had made, the adventures that we had gone on and the people we had met along the way, a surge of pride swelled in my chest. We had finally done it: the story had been completed. A wave of celebration rippled through the crowd of onlookers as the author bathed in the afterglow of completion.

We had done it!

Our writer’s eyes welled with tears, overflowing with understandable joy. We watched as they embraced their own celebration over the incredible feat. Although there had been times where we were unsure if our writer had the drive to complete what they had set out to do, moments where we feared that we would be left with a forgotten world that someone had given up on along with their dreams, but we were happily proven wrong. As they were congratulated rightfully so for the art they had crafted, I smiled fondly at the person I considered a friend. The long arduous journey had finally come to an end and all that was left to do was to enjoy the life that I had been gifted with. 

A sudden cry from the crowd halted the celebration and heads turned to identify the disruption, mine included. 

“Wait! The purge has yet to come!” they shouted in trepidation. 

Many laughed at the wild accusation. The more apprehensive bystanders looked at me for guidance. I awkwardly ran a hand through my hair, not quite knowing what to tell them. “Everything is fine. Nothing is going to purge anybody”

The ground trembled unexpectedly as a response. Cries of horror and confusion followed as we watched as our beloved story was entrusted to another person other than our writer.

A so-called ‘professional’.

My eyes widened as the realization dawned upon me. We were being handed off to someone that held the power to rock our foundation to unfathomable proportions. Did they care about us as much as our writer had? 

Fear gripped my heart as our world trembled under the harsh evaluation. I was aware that this was the purge that many were worried about but we would not be abandoned completely, right? Not after all that we have been through. 

Would we be enough?

The sad truth: there was chance that we would not be.

But no one ever talks about the characters that get left behind in the whirl wind that it took to make a completed and publishable book.

Taking in a deep breath to steel my nerves I turned to face the challenge head on.

It was for our writer. We would do anything for them, be anything for them. 

Looking around at my fellow characters I knew that under the dread and confusion they felt the same way that I did. 

Another journey was about to begin.