The Substance of Reality

One day, in late June, I stood in the middle of my back yard and reached up, my fingers grasping, and pulled a bit of reality loose from the sky. I folded it up and clutched it to my chest as I ran inside. Next to my bed, under a heap of old clothes and other rubbish, I found an old, unused ten gallon fish tank. With some trouble I managed to dislodge the aquarium from the junk and keep a hold of reality at the same time, and with a sigh of relief, I shoved the struggling mass into the tank and trapped it there with an old monopoly board set on top. 1

I hauled the tank out into my living room and sat cross-legged on the floor and examined with awe what I had managed to capture. A number of dark blue sparks, the size of ball point pen tips lay suspended in what looked like think gray gas or fog that swirled and moved about with no regular pattern. I hunched my shoulders and leaned up close the glass, my excited breath making a circle of fog, and tried to unravel the truth of reality. 2

Sadly though, no matter how hard I squinted and observed, the secrets of reality remained locked and hidden among the opaque vapor. The pulsating blue sparks twinkling in mockery. After seventeen minutes or so, I leaned back and glared with frustration; fervently wishing the stubborn fog would open itself to me and be known. When it remained willfully unchanged, I acted it a fit of anger, and nudging the monopoly board over a bit, shoved my hand down into the substance of reality, and caught one of the blue sparks in my hand. It was warm and a bit slippery, and let off the unmistakable sensation of life. 3

I caught spark after spark, letting them run through my fingers and reveling at their strange texture. After some time of fiddling with them I found I had the ability to form them into shapes. After an hour of kneeling before the tank, my face tense with concentration, and both my hands busy with nudging and manipulating the blue specks, I managed to make them into a beautiful, sparkling rose. It was perfect in every aspect, and looked more real than any painting or sculpture in existence, but when I moved back to better observe my work, it fell out of order and crumbled back into singular blue specks. 4

I scowled with frustration and thrust my hands back into the strange matter, forcing the specks back together, my fingers moving with quick, certain gestures, working separate from my conscience mind. When my fingers finally relaxed I let out startled gasp, for laying suspended in the gray mist was a tiny baby girl, formed completely with blue sparks, but obviously alive. I could see her arms reach up, mouth open wide, chest rapidly rising and falling, and her tiny eyes squinting shut. I reached for the tiny fingers I felt the minuscule hand grasp mine, solid and warm, and when I reached for the baby’s neck I could feel a strong, quick pulse against my fingers. 5

Her eyes and mouth both flew open wide and her legs kicked against my other hand; though I couldn’t hear it, I could see that she was crying. I pulled her towards me, a sympathetic sound rising from my throat, but before I had moved her more than an inch, her flesh begin to crumble, blue specks falling through my fingers and floating randomly about the tank once again. I cried out and frantically tried to keep the specks together, grabbing at them, but it was no use, in less than a minute there was not even a shadow of the baby left. 6

I leaned back on my heals and let my hands fall into my lap, my jaw tense and my breath fast. After a moment I reached for the sparks again, and almost against my will began shaping them once more, and in five minutes I had a soft bird fluttering in my fingers. I cupped my hands completely around it, adamant to keep it from falling apart, but it was no good, for it pecked at me with its sparkling beak, and when I flinched in pain it fell into nothing. Again my fingers moved, and this time the sparks formed into a gleaming teapot that stayed solid for less than a minute. A heart shaped locket, a prickly cactus, a long snake, and then finally, the shimmering rose again; all crumbled in my fingers, no matter how firmly I grasped them. 7

Tears fell form my cheeks and mixed with the substance of reality, and when a shining seashell fell into pieces I cried out in anger and grabbed a nearby broom and stood up. I clenched my teeth and brought the broom handle down onto the tank again and again, watching the glass shatter beneath my rage. When I finally calmed down, I dropped the broom to the floor and looked down onto the smashed fish tank, a pile of glass shards, and breathed heavily. The gray substance of reality seeped across the floor for a moment, and then took to the air, spreading thin and finally, into nothing. 8

Author notes

picture prompt - http://cruenta.deviantart.com/art/Magic-56485069

A contest entry

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    Comment Suggestion: What is your your first impression?
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Comments

1 - 9 of 9
  • MoonRoseWolf
    November 15, 2008

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    Wow...very weird, but also very good!

    I loved how you twisted something so strange into something so beautiful and understandable. It was so touching to see how much she wanted to keep something she had no control over, as I'm sure we've all felt like that at some point.

    There were a few mistakes I noticed, but nothing major, such as ' I let out startled gasp' should have an 'a' between out and startled. Also, 'Tears fell form my cheeks', 'form' should be 'from'.

    This was a truely wonderful story, and it was an amazing creative idea. Very well done, you should be really proud of this story!

    Mirry


  • Andy Stephenson Greeters member
    November 8, 2008

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    Hi

    This story is being considered for inclusion in a Storywrite anthology we hope to publish. If you would like this story to be considered, please apply to this group:

    http://storywrite.com/group/info/Storywrite%20Anthology%20Volume%20One?stay=1

    Andy

  • Valkyrie
    October 25, 2008

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    I love it! No wonder you got silver. I can't seem to come up with this sort of creative idea very often. I totally enjoyed the focus of your character as she tried to save the baby's existence, and ended up creating all sorts of different things. I found a sort of cosmic building-blocks moral to the story, in a way. Really creative and well written!

  • MidniteRockers
    October 21, 2008

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    Interestingly Good

    This was weirdly gripping and entertaining. It is a exceptional story, good imagination and describtion. Loved it!
    Good luck
    Lolly x


  • Andy Stephenson Greeters member
    October 21, 2008
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    Very Interesting.

    p1 sigh of (relief),

    p3 After (seventeen) minutes - would open (itself) to me

    p8 Tears fell (from) my


    This is a very interesting story. Quite unlike anything I've read. I notice you have it in a bunch of contests. I wish you success in them. How did you come up with the idea for this story?

    Thanks for entering Exceptional Stories To Be Published - 2

    Andy

    • Noctella
      October 21, 2008

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      First of all, thanks for the changes, they were helpful, and the honorable mention.

      I entered it in a ton of contests because it's a sure way to get reads.

      My motivation for this story would take a while to explain, it was an idea that I couldn't quite put my finger on, so I just started typing and it came out in story form. lol. For the most part it's the idea of entropy, but incorporated into the meaning of life. It's a characterization of the clash of an ever fluctuating universe and the stability craving creatures, humans, that dwell in it. Humans by nature, build, but what they build inevitable ends, or changes. We build roads, relationships, governments, civilizations, and we like to assume that these, both material, and non-material objects, will remain there forever, even though the reality of the situation is that they will not. Basically, humans fight against entropy, but they always lose, and it's makes us, or at least me, very mad. lol. So I smash reality.


      • Andy Stephenson Greeters member
        October 21, 2008
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        So you're a fighter.

        Maybe if you battle hard enough, you can change reality.

        Andy


  • RxxSpiritWolfxxJ Moderators member
    October 18, 2008

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    Good story, mate - you've got a novel idea here. And the way in which the character attempts to create things out of reality.
    It would have been interesting for you to give the reader a message about the fleetness of reality -
    Thanks for entering.

    RJ

  • Twilight.
    September 28, 2008

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    I really liked this. It used a great sense of imagination and you should keep writing. Good luck!

    ~Devil Angel~

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