Writing Scraps

Appendix. No Fate | Chapter 1.1 | Aborted Draft

Appendix. No Fate
Fox-Trot-9

Chapter 1: First Impressions
1.1: The Meaning of Fate

Before we begin, let's talk about fate. It has a lot of names besides fate, including destiny, providence, the stars, chance, luck, serendipity, fortune, kismet, karma. The list goes on and on. But in the end, it doesn't matter how it's named; it all means the same thing, that shit happens. It's common knowledge, implied in the Bible, philosophized by the philosophers who had nothing better to do and even parodied in a few movies. It's everywhere, but most of us never think about it in the hectic rat-race of our waking lives; and even when we do, we forget about it just as quickly as we forget our dreams.

I am no exception. I rarely thought about it, and even if I did, I almost never gave a damn about it. I say almost, because there was an exception. Now I don't remember much of the first time I thought about fate. I was barely six years old when I thought about it, an age few people can remember without the distortions of passing years. I remember, because my grandfather had died a week before, and I just got back from attending his funeral.

My parents said he died of natural causes, that he had lived a full life here on earth and was due to come up to heaven and spend the rest of his days there. At the time, I was ignorant of death and fate; I thought it was just a temporary leave of absence in which everyone comes back to visit once a year on my birthday, nothing more. When I asked when Gramps was going to visit us from heaven, my parents looked at me for a long time without answering. Then my mom looked like she was going to cry, though I didn't know why, and before I could ask, she picked herself off the couch and went away sobbing. It was so unexpected, and it scared me; I never meant to make her cry, and I didn't want to make my dad angry, but he stayed silent, never raising his voice at me. He only sighed and bade me sit beside him, so he could tell me something very important.

So I sat and waited for him to begin, dreading what he would say. Not because I knew what he was going to say was bad, but that what I said about Gramps hurt my mom's feelings.

But he never said that; instead, he looked at me and said that Gramps will never come back, that I would never get to see him again except in my memories of him and in the photos left of him. He said that heaven is a place where good people live in once they passed on, and that the only way you could visit Gramps is after you yourself pass on, which won't happen to me for a long, long time.

What he told me hurt like no other hurt I've suffered in my six years of living on this earth. Tears rolled down my cheeks. The pain was indescribable; something deep inside ached as though a piece of myself was excised and left a void that could never be filled again. It wasn't like getting a scab on a knee or even getting a broken arm; it was worse than that. The thought of never seeing someone you cared about ever again felt like abandonment, but even worse than that. I just couldn't find a word for it.

Until my dad provided the word for it. He said, "Gramps is dead, Evan. Whenever people go to heaven and never come back to visit, they're always dead. But that doesn't mean he's not happy where he is. Heaven's a good place, a place for those who earned it..."

He kept on talking, but I didn't care. I didn't want to hear it; I was too wrapped up in the grief of never seeing Gramps again to look at things through the eyes of someone other than a six-year-old's. In a way, I was being selfish, but everyone is that way at that age. Gimme, gimme, gimme! In my case, all I wanted was to see Gramps again.

After a few minutes of crying my eyes out, my dad looked at me and said that it was okay to cry. Everybody cries when crying's needed to drown out our sorrows. But we can't spend the rest of out lives crying; all we can really do is pick up the pieces and move on with our lives.

Move on: those were the wisest words my dad ever said to me.

That night after the big talk with my dad, as I lay in my bed looking up into the darkness of my room, listening to the steady hum of the air conditioner just beyond my door, I thought long and hard on death and what it means in the running river of our lives. Now it wasn't anything fancy; I was not philosophizing in the hypothetical modes of Friedrich Nietzsche or Fyodor Dostoevsky about the illusion of free will in the constraints of a predetermined fate. In reality, it was rather simple. I might not control everything in my life, but in the things I can control, I won't be subject to fate.

* * *

It's been ten years since that fateful day. Now I'm sixteen; I've moved on from that tragedy and handled myself pretty well. I've made friends and lost friends, went through good times and bad times, and through them all I've persevered. But in all those years, I never thought it had to come to this. Fate had to rear it's ugly head again and engulf me in it's night.

(To be continued...)

1st A/N: Okay, here's the first chapter of my new fantasy story. I know it's short, but that's okay. Most first chapters are short. Oh, and if you have any names you can think of, then please let me know. Oh, and one more thing. Whether you like this story or not, please tell me; all criticism, critiques or suggestions are welcome. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

2nd A/N: Rather than destroy this chapter for good, I'm keeping it here in Writing Scraps to let everyone know how my first execution of this fantasy story flopped. It's a sobering experience that I hope to learn from, as I am preparing to rewrite the story during NaNoWriMo.