Webography
Creative Writing Software
|
 |
 |
|
Short Stories |
Free Will |
Author: Amy Woof |
|
“No. I don't think you get it! This isn't just about your refusal to unblock the drains, this is about, every. Little. Thing, that you get wrong. Sandra told me that Jeffrey came in the other day and said that you were looking at other women and, you not only look at them, apparently you whistled at one the other day! How is that supposed to make me feel John?! You think I like to just be the household slave who sits by while you whistle at other woman and I'm cooking your dinner,
washing your clothes, ironing your flippin' underwear for Christ's sake!” The marriage councillor could see this getting out of control, the woman was on her feet, almost screaming at her husband, he didn't like to be judgemental, but he couldn't at this moment see how this marriage was ever going to work, this particular couple had been coming to see him for almost fifteen years now, it amazed him that they had managed to stay together for this long in fact. Although he considered himself as one of the best in the business, there were some things that even he couldn't solve.
He decided to step in, “Now listen here, things are getting out of hand. Lucy? Why don't you make a list of everything that John does to annoy you. Quietly” He had made them do this thousands of times, but it was the only thing that seemed to turn Lucy's volume down. “John, I notice you haven't said too much today, maybe you ought to do the same.” Lucy landed back on the sofa and folded her arms tightly around herself.
The marriage councillor rummaged around in his desk until he found a few pieces of paper, he handed one to each of them, then laid an assortment of pens onto his desk, following rule number two “Always offer a struggling couple some simple choices to make them feel like they're in control of their situation.” By giving them a choice of pen, it would make them feel a little less hysterical and more down to earth and in control. This rule was from the 'The Marriage Councillors Guide to Success',
in other words, the bible for all marriage councillors, a book that this particular marriage councillor worshipped. In fact, if he somehow won an Oscar for marriage councillor of the year, bearing in mind no such thing existed, his words would be something like this : “If only every talent could be obtained from a book-store like I obtained my talent from this very book, 'the marriage councillors guide to success' it truly is a godsend and I want to thank everyone who sweated over the creation of this book,
it gave me success and I hope it gives the same to you. Thank-You” He had imagined the situation many a time - he didn't have a very busy life - and it gave him a surge of thrill every time he thought about it, until he came back down to Earth and back to the reality of the situation: there was no such award. He hated his job. He would in fact prefer a desk job. There was nothing worse than listening to people argue about the little problems in their life and give advice about it, when his was much worse, in fact, for John Chesterfield: life sucked. He was in fact thinking this when he took the first step that situated him at the precarious edge in-between life and death, the precipice of disaster, another step and he suddenly died from fatal head injuries, due to a speeding ambulance, he didn't even have a chance to notice the irony.
I only mention this insignificant marriage councillor because he was one of many who died instantly in that exact second, that exact millisecond, that exact hundredth of a millisecond that exact... well, you get the idea. Some of these thousands of people died from choking on thin air. Others fell head first down the stairs breaking their neck - far from painlessly – and some died incredibly gruesomely, so actually, it will give me great pleasure to talk about it...
The receptionist, well, ex-receptionist as she had been fired that very day, was struggling with a large cardboard box, she was in fact trying to balance the box on her lap, while standing up, so ended up squatting uncomfortably because she needed to press the button for the lift, only to find that she couldn't reach the button from her squat position, she then had a rather brainy idea and realised that there was in fact a rather convenient floor in which she could place her box of belongings, it was now that she had the opportunity to realise why she'd been fired, but of course,
no such realisation occurred. So use the floor she did, she straightened up, pressed the button, brushed of her grey pencil skirt and bent down again to pick up her box, she straightened up yet again, wished she could brush off her skirt to look professional, and stepped forward into the lift, a fatal step. The lift was in fact on the floor above and had been fixed incorrectly the day before by the handy man of the building, a man who in fact was taking his own fatal step at that precise point. The ex-receptionist's thoughts as she took her step, were in fact the same as the marriage councillor's “I hate my life”.
These coincidences however were not as coincidental as you may think ...
|
|
In God-only-knows where... literally, sat the creator of Earth itself, you know the bloke. Well, he had just woken up after a well earned four and a half billion Earth years, he stretched, yawned and remembered a dream which had occurred halfway through his lengthy slumber, a dream with a clear meaning “Free will is a bad idea”, the reason why the meaning of the dream was so obvious was because the entire dream had in fact been just this sentence hovering in mid air, the intention of this dream was even apparent to a person recovering from a four and a half billion year snooze, bed hair and all. So the Creator – we'll
just call him God for now shall we as we haven't yet been introduced – seeing the sense in this well put together argument – yeah right – looked upon his desk where the Earth stood precariously on it's paper mache stand amongst a heap of papers, supposedly in another dimension, or so the packaging on the 'create-a-planet' box said. He retrieved the box from his bedroom floor, looking for instructions on how to adjust free will on his crudely made planet. The instructions read:
How to adjust population size :
If your newly made collectible create-a-planet is overflowing, turn the population knob down and all of the least life-appreciating beings will be deleted from it's inbuilt hard drive, alternatively you may increase the population by twisting the knob up, however, be warned, the happiness of your civilians will be greatly affected by the population size, and remember, we want to keep those people smiling!
How to adjust free will :
Control freaks BEWARE, those little people take a lot of controlling, so even though you may feel up to the challenge, putting your free will switch onto “None” would be generally a bad idea, however, you can give them a small amount of free will, meaning you can then interfere with their lives while they live it but they won't be waiting on your every command, or indeed, you can switch it up to “maximum free will” and you can sit back and watch as their little lives unfold: it's all up to you!
“Okay, might as well do both while I'm at it” He turned the population knob down a couple of clicks, and then switched the free will onto “None”, heeding no warning to the the clear “BEWARE” that went with doing this, oh well, that's boys for you.
Along time ago, in a galaxy... no, seriously, jokes aside, this was a time of death and destruction for the people on Earth … in a galaxy far far away. Sorry, about that, irresistible opportunity you understand. Anyhow, as you might have guessed, this was the exact moment when thousands of people died mysteriously on the planet Earth, but of course there was no-one there to investigate these unusual phenomenons as everyone left on Earth instantly froze. As you can imagine, people on motorways, flying planes, swimming, climbing, all of these people died quickly and probably quite painfully as a result of a simple flick of switch.
The finger responsible for the deaths and immobilisation of these people was attached to, well, an ignorant child at best, others would call him an idiot but, maybe we should look at it from his point of view first before we make assumptions shall we?
This man who we will continue to call God as he shows no interest of an introduction, winced as he watched the destruction he had caused on his miniature planet through a looking glass. He realised what he'd done but couldn't for the life of him remember why, so he quickly flicked the switch back to “maximum free will” and sat back as he watched all the people, well all the alive people resume their day, as if nothing had happened, just seeming quite confused about all of the mess which in the blink of an eye disappeared and returned back to default mode. The people didn't notice a thing and neither could they remember any of their friends and family who had been unfortunate enough to go for a drive ten minutes previously or were in mid flight to Barbados in search of some relaxation.
“God” then trying to remember why he had tampered with the free will switch when it was clearly advised not to, felt the answers scamper away, he shrugged and turned to face the day he had been waiting for, for four and a half billion years still with a night cap in place, his dream slipping away behind him, no-one ever knowing if the dream was of any significance or if it was just one of those days.
By Amy Woof, aged 16
|
About the author:
Name: Amy Woof
Date of Birth: 27th December 1993
School: Glebelands school (Cranleigh) – going to Godalming college in September 2010 ..."
 |
| |
