Y’know that story I published yesterday? I was so pissed that it ended happily, that I went back and rewrote it with the ending I wanted. I consider both stories valid, and interesting as opposites of one another…

Rocks and Leaves

I am a rock. I am solid. Do try and budge me – you will not be able to. You will be here – forever. Image it. Imagine being here forever! Imagine being me! Imagine being God!

George Mason remembered. George Mason remembered the legend – it had not been passed down, nor had it been transferred through his various acquaintances and peers. It had been entirely fabricated, in his own mind. He had discovered the legend all on his own. Discovered, he thought, was not the proper word – but who was going to judge his fabrication? He closed his eyes and imagined it, then opened his eyes and saw what was really in front of him: The canvas of the camping tent.

Would the camping tent stop him? He unzipped its cover – his father, Greg, sat outside in the nighttime air, roasting a marshmallow. It stunk like silly putty, George thought. “That’s what you get for buying the cheap kind,” he whispered. His father turned.

“Say something?”

“No, dad. I never say anything. Please stop hearing things.” George was named for his father, and his father before him. All of the men in the Mason family were given names that began with the letter G, as a part of tradition. Females were given the letter S – if George had been born a girl, his name would have been Sarah.

I am a leaf. I move in the wind. I bend to the will of others, and am easily destroyed. Travel with me – forever. Serve those who make us move. Imagine it. Imagine seeing the world… imagine, as you are now.

George opened his eyes again and saw that his father’s marshmallow had melted off of the stick. Why anybody would eat a marshmallow off of a stick, George could not reason. All he could reason was that he didn’t feel like eating a mouthful of ticks. Obviously, his father felt differently, because he picked up the white putty from the ground, wrapped it around the stick, and ate it off. “Just as if it hadn’t fallen, eh boy? Five second rule, is that what you kids say?”

It wasn’t, but George nodded. George always nodded to his father – especially on his camping trips. Greg called the shots. Greg was stern and stubborn, but undeniably cheerful, and that bothered George. George wasn’t as young as his father thought he was, but Greg had been in perpetual delusion ever since George had gone off to college. Far over middle age, his father was suffering loss long before it happened, as his son had all but abandoned him physically, and now almost entirely mentally. The camping trips, once every semester, and during breaks, were his attempts to salvage that bond he once had with his son. The son who was naive, the son who unconditionally surrendered to his father’s kindness, the son who, now older, was not so kind to his kind father.

But to George, his father was far from kind, and he detested the moment spent in the wilderness. But he knew that it was for the good of the family. It would keep the family together. That was all that mattered, in the end. Keep the family stable – rock solid. Don’t let it blow in the wind. Because, George felt, it just might if he didn’t act.

But because he detested the wilderness so much, he spent long hours inside his tent. The canvas shielded him from outside world. He could see part of his reflection on the off-white surface of the tent; it was not clear, his face, but he knew that if only the surface of the tent were smooth, unfolded, his face would be there. Several portions of the distorted reflection were blocked by dirt on the tent’s wall. Looking at those splotches of filth, George reminisced about the splotches of dirt on his life. The troubles that so desperately needed to be washed away – like this camping trip. He sat back and drifted into thought as his father continued to eat dirty marshmallows.

That night, as George drifted, Greg fell ill. The marshmallows, like putty, had collected everything they fell upon. An inked copy entered Greg’s mouth, and he contracted the most horrible food poisoning. He vomited in the fire, putting it out. Sputum mixed with the vomit, and all the while George slept, dreaming about his experiences, his delusions, his legend…

His father remained outside the campfire, trapped in an equally delusional dream-filled sleep. When George woke up the next morning, he found his father nestled against the rocks surrounding the camp fire, his head resting on a white pillow of gunk – the uneaten marshmallows, and a bit of vomit. George had plans now to leave the woods, but he knew that something more important lurked within. He had seen it in his dream. There was a door – two people had spoken to him. “I am a rock,” one had said. “I am a leaf,” the other argued. Caught between these two personas, George lusted for an answer. His thoughts meant nothing – he had only a mission: To discover the meaning of this dream, this legend he himself had fabricated.

There was something hidden in the woods.

George wanted to wake his father, to proclaim this revelation that he had merely stumbled upon unwillingly, but even his toughest kicks would not stir the old man. With this task failed, he gathered a few objects and set off into the woods, in a direction he knew would take him into the greens so deep that he might never emerge. However, he was confident in his own ability to navigate back, just as he was confident that all of his thoughts were true. The legend, as he fabricated it, told the following tale:

Long ago, in these woods, an angel and a demon fought over the proper way of living. The demon, bound to Hell and Earth, remained firm and debated that all creatures should find only a single place to house themselves, and remain there for eternity. And the demon had prepared a nasty spell for this, and was prepared to go against all convention to keep all living things in their proper place. But the angel, free to flutter the skies and act on his whims, valiantly disagreed. The angel believed that all beings should travel endlessly across the Earth and Heaven, and see all that there is to see before making their final transition from life. And the angel had prepared a nasty spell for this, and was prepared to go against all convention to ensure that all living things wandered the Earth forever.

The two forces battled one another, eventually emerging in a grand war. The angel recruited several acquaintances, and they unleashed their wrath upon the demon, who had also gathered reinforcements from the Earth itself, and who brought battlements to defend his party with. This war raged for ten thousand years, until the numbers were so large that entropy inevitably took its rightful place as victor of the war.

Slowly, the feathers were torn from the angels, and they could not fly. Slowly, the fortresses of the demons were destroyed, and they could not defend themselves. The two forced attacked with full might, generating energy and heat beyond comprehension. The uprooted feathers began to melt; the fortresses, under the heat, collapsed and the logs that created them began to roll away. Everything, in the heat of the battle, melted into a single, flowing object. When all had perished in the heat and melted to liquid, the liquid of the two factions combined crystallized itself.

The crystals spread about the Earth. Some crystals become soil; some crystals became stone; some crystals became seeds for trees, which would grow leaves; some crystals evaporated and became the clouds themselves. But what made these crystals – the great fusing force of God – remained elusive for centuries. The key to this great fusing force supposedly remained hidden somewhere on the very grounds where the ancient battle first took place.

If the two spirits of the first demon and the first angel were speaking to George, he knew that he had to find the great fusing force hidden in these woods. And it was not long he had walked before he came to a clearing. In this clearing stood a gate – an archway with sealed double-doors, leading to nowhere on either side. It was old, but not old enough to date back to the ancient battle. Excited, George ran up to the relic and felt it with his hands. Dirt came off of the arch onto his hands, and he wiped the dirt on his pants. He looked at his watch – he decided to return to the campsite at noon, which was not long from then.

Continually exploring the archway, he found several small stones. Some were clear, but had smoky centers and were harder than any material in the woods, even tougher than the stone that created the archway. There were beautiful stones that reflected rainbow patterns. All manners of shimmering gemstone and crystal seemed to flood this area. As he dug into the soil, he found more of the clear yet smoky stone. He found pink variations, purple variations, and yellow variations with black impurities. George uncovered a strange, pointed stone – and in the stone he saw his own reflection. He jumped back; the stone was smoother than the canvas, much smoother. He finally saw his face.

George turned away from the archway and began heading back to the campsite, but something else caught his eye besides the sparkling gems on the ground. There was a mysterious glow emanating from the archway; he could not make out precisely where inside the archway it came from, and began to search the structure for the source of the light. He realized, soon enough, that it was coming from the crack between the double doors. Was it unlocked? Would it budge?

George didn’t have to answer these questions – the door opened on its own. The sparkling gems on the ground, and even the dull rocks, all began to rise off out of their sedentary positions and migrate towards to open archway of brilliance. Slowly the stones gathered, and began to take shape. But before the shape could materialize completely in front of the light, it broke into a thousand tiny stone pieces and fled through the archway, disappearing forever. George, out of curiosity, followed, completely lost in his own fantasy.

There was nothing inside the archway – he had passed right through. It was just an old stone archway and door. The light, too, was gone. All of the shimmering gems and stones were still on the ground surrounding, and hadn’t budged. He, however, was not on the opposite side of the arch, and feeling exceedingly embarrassed he walked back to the other side.
The light shone brilliantly.

He turned and looked into the light. At first, nothing, but then – there was a figure. The figure took shape; his father, still passed out in front of the depleted campfire. And then another figure – indescribable; its shape warped and twisted, never at any given time staying the same. But it worked its way out of the light. George jumped as the shadow-mass of the organism exited the archway. From whence it had come George could not describe, but he knew that he had to follow it from the arch to wherever it was going. He took some of the stones from the ground; they were treasures from an ancient time, and he wanted them as a keepsake. They proved that his legends were true, that he obviously had a knack for postdicting the fanciful events of the past.

The shadow-mass began to take form. It had grown ten feet in height, and grown twisted, vine-like arms and legs. Soon enough, it began to look like a tree – but it wasn’t simply alive as a tree was alive. It continued to move. It trampled all smaller plants in its wake, and George soon knew that it was headed to his campsite. But what could he do to stop it?

Bark began to fall from the beast – skin was left underneath. Bubbling, hot grey skin, still taking form. The bubbling and sizzling ceased; the beast was complete. However, from behind George could not make out what the beast was. It certainly was no angel come from the archway. As they made their way to the campsite, the monster completely oblivious to the presence of its creator, George began hitting it with rocks from behind to get its attention. The monster never turned, and then there they were at the campsite, standing in front of his unconscious father. Greg saw nothing as the monster, with its vine-like arms and branch-like, yet flesh-covered fingers grabbed him by the heels and began dragging him backwards to the archway.

George screamed – louder was the scream inside his head than the one that came out of his mouth. He ran up to the beast and began pummeling it with his fists, until he saw its face; it was a demon, the very same from his legend, and he knew at last who had won the war. His own version of the legend must have been incredibly wrong, for there was the demon in front of his, holding his father by the heels, possibly ready to kill him, or take him away forever. Once George was relieved of the shock, he began pummeling the demon once again, this time with rocks and twigs. None did any harm to the demon, and yet he kept pelting and pelting, and pummeling and pummeling. And finally, a spark.

A spark from the fire.

Another spark, from somewhere else.

He threw more rocks. The more rocks he threw, the more fell into the campfire, and the greater the fire became. Soon it consumed the campsite, and worked its way to the outer reaches of the forest. It followed the trail of the demon and Greg as well, who had not gone far as the demon was quite slow. And, unintentionally, the fire struck Greg instead of the demon, causing Greg to wake up covered in flames. The demon, sensing the immense danger, fled the scene rather quickly and disappeared into the light of the archway. All of the stones on the ground around the archway seized up, hovered and began one large crystalline structure – the crystal hovered to the door, and pressed itself so hard into the two shut doors that it created an indent for itself to rest in. The crystal remained in this indent as a diamond remains inside its ring; the double doors were locked. Ut the forest continued to burn, and so did Greg, who was screaming on the ground surrounded by flames, flames caused by his son, who was also in a panic and did not know what to do.

He tried to save his screaming father, but there was no time; his skin was beginning to burn off. His screams were becoming garbled. His face contorted, and there was nothing that George could do. He ran away, ran for a mile and more, and still he could hear his father screaming and yelping as he died in the flames. Greg’s eyes had since burst and the liquid rushed along his body, acting as fuel for the fire – his insides had all boiled and burned in the frenzy, his fingers had become long, bony and contorted with the flames. His face was left fixed in its distressed, screaming position – the empty eye sockets joining with the hanging jaw, locking him in a state of surprise and terror for eternity.

And George continued to run away, wailing and regretting every moment of his life from that point forward. For he knew that there had been no archway, and that there had been no demon, and of course there had been no magical mysterious stones – only an empty forest, an imagination, and some flint. But George knew that his legend was, in a sense, true – fire had once again triumphed over all, at the cost of both angels and demons alike. It was only after this triumph did he realize how truly empty fire was.