What did that add to the narrative?

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. It wasn’t a convenient time for them to be ablaze as I hadn’t yet adjusted to this narrative. I was stood on the doorstep of a building I wasn’t yet familiar with, looking ahead at a road that stretched straight on into the distance. This road was flanked on either side with these strange tall trees - willow trees I think (an impressive deduction to make within a minute of existing if I do say so myself). And yes, the leaves were on fire. 

It wasn’t a warm fire, from what I could tell. That was a shame because the weather was rather chilly, which I apparently heavily dislike. No, instead the fire was visual only. That sort of defeats the key attraction of fire really, doesn’t it? Does it? I don’t exactly have a social context in this existence yet. I do imagine fires are mostly started for warmth over aesthetics, but this is a discussion for another time. 

Right now I’m telling you about my surprise manifestation in this reality wherein two things have happened:

1. I have stepped outside of a building.

This implies plenty of things, chiefly: I am able to move myself about, someone or something put this building here probably for a specific purpose (at that time of course I was not aware of the significance of this building in particular), and yes a great deal of assumptions can be made about the general state of existence and my expectations of it that are a bit too laborious to list here.

2. I have seen leaves that are on fire, but the fire is not warm.

I have no idea what this implies. Frankly, it’s more annoying than anything else. As I said, it was cold and a bit of heat would have gone down quite nicely. Should anything really be done about it? I didn’t know, perhaps this was completely normal, but for some reason I found this to be odd. This implied that I, for some reason, was not used to it. Look it’s hard to get your bearings so easily in a new reality. 

Where was I before? Silly question. I did not exist. I started at the top of this page. Where will I end? Rude question (and a bit too teleological really). How would you feel if I asked you where you will end? 

Yeah it’s not nice to think about, is it?

But anyway, let’s get back to the matter at hand. I’ve stepped outside and there are leaves on fire which is unusual. So what happened next? 

A bit of a pause. 

The flames kept blazing. I kept standing - and so did the building behind me, thankfully. I was at a loss of what it was I should be doing. There was a feeling deep in my brain that I couldn’t quite name. A buzzing inside that spurred me to be doing something. With apparently nothing else urgent to get on with, I decided to sit down on the road and have a think about it. 

The passage of time was incredibly difficult to gauge so I won’t bother guessing, but anyway - sooner or later (I genuinely couldn’t tell you which) I cracked it:

Everything was sickeningly vague about this existence. The inability to contextualise anything spawned a rabid gnawing anxiety that slowly crept up through my thoughts. The more I thought about it, the more I hated it until that hate became visceral. I could feel something akin to bile coming up through my body until I realised it was literally bile, and then I was sick. It seems I had an empty stomach. 

The real problem I had with this existence was not knowing anything about it. Once I became aware of this, I had to learn more. I had to explore. When you’re new to somewhere travelling anywhere counts as exploring. So I stood up, wiped my mouth, and turned around. The building was in front of me with the little door I had stepped out of a few minutes or a lifetime ago. 

It was a building so boring it was actually frightening to look at, so I won’t deign to describe it. You’re really after a compelling narrative or moral lesson here (no promises) rather than an architect’s lament anyway. Deciding not to grace the building with my presence (again?), I then turned to look back at the trees. No change. Still on fire, still cold, still a disappointment. I idly wondered what their purpose was, but this engendered hackle-raising follow-up questions regarding my own purpose which I wasn’t quite ready to delve into. The two remaining options were; to sit down again, no thanks; or to go down the road to an uncertain destination. I could make the point that no destination is really certain when you consider life to be a journey however I don’t think we’ve established that kind of rapport yet. Another time.

I progressed down the road, following it as more trees appeared, leaves still cooly ablaze. All I saw ahead of me was more road and to the sides nothing but an open plain. Again the exact passage of time is contentious and still debated. Nevertheless, it was for a time uneventful. There was nothing else but the sound of my feet striking against the asphalt and the weird leaves just blazing away uselessly.

Alas, something needed to happen because otherwise, this wouldn’t be a short story. So it did. 

As it happens, my travels were disrupted by the arrival of another traveller. It was a shrouded figure, atop a pale mare that cantered gracefully toward me on spindly long legs. Thankfully I quickly saw through this aggressively indulgent display of symbolism and deduced what this really was: an excuse. 

Yes, an excuse. Because you weren’t born yesterday (unlike possibly me) you’ve easily worked out that this traveler represents Death, as a concept. Of course, I’m not stupid so I saw that too. My disgust is palpable. It’s cheap. It’s derivative. It’s unoriginal. It’s like using the rule of three but also thinking that subverting it is in someway cleverer. 

That’s when I realised that this fate of mine is being created- no, worse: It’s being improvised. Revolting. Yes, you see, the concept of Death appeared because the author of this tale has simply no idea what to do with the circumstances placed before him. This is a little humiliating for him I think. The least you can do when you engineer someone’s entire existence is to have a little forethought. They exist for these few pages that you bother to give them and if you’re going to create someone then it’s incumbent on you to make their existence decent. 

If you don’t believe me then let’s look at the facts. First of all, this world is devoid of anything that requires a meaningful description. Oh boy, a road, a building, and some trees? How bold. You’ll remember that I was even forced to cover for the author’s lack of imagination by simply saying the building was indescribable like it was some Lovecraftian terror from the deep, rather than a simple writing exercise. Secondly, the narrative is full of repetition and pointless meandering. Yeah, we get it - I was just born. Great joke. Why don’t you try referencing it a few more times in regard to commonplace existential situations, you hack? Then they’ll really see how smart you are. Thirdly, The prose drips with half-baked philosophical enquiries that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny in a playground, let alone an academic discussion. Why the hell were the leaves on fire anyway? What did that add to the narrative? Did it have to add anything? Oh, shut up with the questions, Socrates. And lastly, there’s the pathetic and ill-placed attempts at sardonic humour which speaks to some sort of derangement. I mean come on, he threw the word “teleological” in. That’s not a sign of a healthy mind. 

Perhaps I should be sad - devastated even. But I’m not. I’m angry. Furious! My entire life is just a pathetic attempt to win fifty American dollars, and he’s not even American! And what, you’re going to win on your debut submission? Calm down Agatha fucking Christie and save some of your godlike prowess for a real job. 

Oh and there he goes; another opened tab with another story prompt. 

Come back!

You’ve not finished with me! Nor am I finished with you!