and appeared in a swamp where a clockmaker gave me a faceless clock. I then left and remembered a lot about my past. I worked in a large building with my new wife Ramonia. She appeared throughout the story to give me words of wisdom on how to get home. That was my main objective, to get home and find out how I got to the new world in the first place. I met a shadow named Heradus and helped him get his body back but he didn’t repay the debt of me helping him. The wizard was cut out of the story altogether.
After that I found a water ship and sailed to a new place, a tiny kingdom. The king’s daughter looked like Ramonia and she gives me advice. I become a leader there and helped defeat a vicious enemy army. The king showed me how to leave and I ended up in a city. It is there that I meet a Sun Person who fell from the sun. I help him find a little spaceship once used by humans who went to the sun and he gets back safely. I wander the world for a while and end up in a city with a coast. It is there that I meet Ramonia again. I realize that this person is not Ramonia, but an otherworldly guide who looks like Ramonia so I will listen to them and go where they tell me to go. In the end I find out that it doesn’t matter where I am, I was still having a great life. It’s only when I realize that the location doesn’t matter and the people do that the little clock activates and transports me home. I live happily ever after with Ramonia.
I’m not sure how much I like the finished story, but it wasn’t too bad. I just hoped other people liked it enough to publish it so I could move on.
I woke up the next morning to see that my cabin moved from the very back to near the front. I was only ten or so cabins away from the cliff. That meant that the story was almost ready to be published. Wilmer came by to tell me that that was the single biggest jump of any story he had ever seen.
I spent the day going around to other rows and meeting other stories. They all had interesting lives and some even made me a little afraid. There were so many of them that had much better stories than I did. A few were even way in the back of their rows and never moved. If they were that great and hadn’t been published yet then what were my chances?
The days went by, each slower than the last. I found out how terrible it is to have to wait for something that was sure to happen and yet didn’t seem to ever happen. Weeks went by and my cabin only moved up one spot. I saw others disappear overnight and new ones replace them. Some were much newer ideas.
I was becoming like Wilmer. After a few months he recruited me to help him go around and greet the new stories. There were record numbers every day. I agreed and soon became complacent in my new job. My cabin was solidified at number nine. The wood turned dark and I was afraid it would start to fall apart and I would be pushed back with the stories that pretty much didn’t have a chance.
Wilmer kept my hopes up. He told me about stories that had to wait years. All that did was make me feel worse. Meeting the new cabin dwellers made me feel bad too. They were so full of hope and optimism just like I was. And some had a right to. One day I was telling a new story all about what I thought his story was about and the next he was already gone.
A year after I arrived there new types of cabins started showing up. These were temporary cabins. The stories knew that their writers were going to take care of publishing themselves and so they didn’t need to stay long. At one point somebody arrived and they disappeared before we made it to their cabin. Most who came were this sort. They arrived and left within a matter of minutes or hours, however long it took for the writers to secure the publication.
Wilmer stopped the meet and greets. It was no longer practical. Unlike with me, most new stories already knew they were stories. And through all this my cabin never moved.
I went to the cliff daily. I thought about jumping off again. I figured it would force Lawrence to change the story into something better. I never could make myself do it. Every morning I went to the cliff and thought about jumping off and every night I went home and hoped the next day would be my last.
One night I was shaken awake by Wilmer. He looked excited about something and I followed him outside. A large silver door stood on the edge of the cliff.
“Who is that for?” I asked.
“You.”
I stared at him. I should have felt excited, but instead I felt skeptical. “Why a door? Don’t most just disappear?”
“Yes, but a door is a good sign. I haven’t seen one since I was a new story here. The door means that you are expected to do great things on the other side. It’s only for the best stories.”
I shook my head. “I’m not the best story. There are so many better stories around here.”
“Don’t let a perfectly good cake waste because you aren’t proud of the ingredients.”
“Come again?”
“Sorry, that’s the cookbook coming out.”
I shrugged. “So what do I do?”
“You just walk right through that door.”
I took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s hope they don’t send me back.”
Wilmer laughed. “They won’t.”
“It’s been fun.” I held my hand out for him to shake. He hugged me instead.
“I know you’ll do great. Don’t forget about us out here.”
“I won’t. And don’t worry. I’m sure you will be published one day.”
I went up to the door, smiled to Wilmer, and went through.
Dazzling light forced my eyes closed. I could hear cheering. I forced my eyes open and saw hundreds of smiling faces clapping and shouting. I stumbled through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting people.
It was a wonderful sight. I could see for miles. There were streams and fields and even mountains beyond all of that. There wasn’t a worry anywhere.
A couple of kids came up to me. The boy wore a tunic with a twig belt and the girl wore a dress and they both had blond hair. I shook their hands and they eagerly wanted to hear about my tale. I told them I would tell them but I wanted to get settled first. They took me away from the crowd and up a slope that I felt was actually made of cloud. The girl turned to me.
“We are going to where you will be staying. Now that you are published you will be read by many people.”
“Yes,” the boy said, “but don’t get too scared about it all.”
“Shut it, Ludus. Why would you say something like that?” The girl said angrily. She smiled at me. “Don’t mind him. There is nothing to be scared of here.”
I was too happy to feel scared about anything, especially people reading my story. After all, isn’t that why we were all there?
At the top of the slope was an endless row of large doors. Each one had a symbol on it to show the story that belonged inside. We passed one with a golden rose on it.
“This one is ours.” The girl said. “Yours will be down here a bit.”
I studied each one and tried to figure out what type of story they belonged to. One had a little brown box on it. I assumed that one was about little creatures coming out of the box. I don’t know how I figured that, it just seemed right. Another had what looked like an upside down bowl on it. A man in a gray outfit stood beside it. He nodded as we passed.
“Showing the new story around, Mith?” He asked.
“Someone should, Hardin.” She said. “It’s not like the old days where we let them wander around endlessly.”
“Though that was funny.” Ludus said.
Some symbols were stranger than others. One door had a fedora on it. I had no idea what that could be about. After we passed it a man came out of that door. He wore a fedora and had a nice suit on with a vest. That confused me more.
I finally saw my door. I knew it instantly. It had a cliff with water below. A tiny person was standing on the cliff. We stopped outside this door and I looked at the ones on either side. The door on the left had a black carriage and the one on the right had a lantern. I couldn’t help but see the next one after that. It had a hobo b
indle on it.
“You and your writer must have a great bond.” The girl named Mith said. “Most writers never know about the cliff where ideas start.”
“I think he knows as much about me as I do about him.” I said.
“So this is yours.” Ludus said. “Just go in and you will figure out what to do on your own.”
I thanked them both and put my hand on the knob.
“Just remember,” Mith said, “your real adventure starts now.”
They walked away. I looked at the door. Whatever was beyond it was my final destination, my deepest desire. I slowly turned the knob and entered.
It was a plain white room with a chair in the center. The floor and walls were so white I could not see where one ended and the other began. On the chair was a book, the same book the wizard showed me. I took it and sat down in the chair. Immediately I knew what to do. I opened the book to the first page.
A little boy and his mother appeared. The boy was in bed and his mother was sitting beside him. She held the book in her hand. I watched as more people started to appear in the room. There was a girl sitting at a desk, a teenager in the grass, an adult on a bus. Hundreds became visible. They all sat around me, but could not see me. The little boy in the bed was holding a little box that looked just like the faceless clock I had. He pressed a button and a little cuckoo popped out. He laughed and set it down, waiting for his mother to start. I looked down at the page, joy filling