Are They in Love with Misery?

Are they in love with misery?

Because it seems to me like they are.

Whenever I live through a story of drought, of heartache, of absolute repulsing terror, they flock around it like vultures, gobbling it up with giddy smiles. Whenever I live though a tale of horror and grief, they devour it completely, mouths open wide, yearning for more.

But whenever I live a story of love, of kindness and compassion, of the happy ending that I have always wanted, they cast it out, kicking and muttering, saying "This isn't good enough." The public wants my misery, my pain. They do not want my joy.

It seems that way to me. They are in love with misery.

Shall I live through this misery a thousandfold before they are satisfied? Shall I be set in a story of gut-wrenching fear, where my legs are bolted to the ground and my body quakes? They control me, they make my story, and they are in love with the misery that I emanate. I try to live a story of peace and understanding and they start to hate me.

They call me a "character," for I am nothing but a pawn in their game. Their game which only they win, for they control me and everything around them using their poison pens. They write out the story word by word, letter by letter, piecing it together with such a certainty.

And how they have never noticed me crying out for mercy against them, I do not know.

I have stolen one of their poison pens, and I plan to make my point clear. Are they in love with misery? Why do they adore it so? Any story they make me live through is full of doubt and agony, tears and grief. They never want me to be happy, to live out my wondrous ending. They like to set me back to the beginning by opening the first page of the book, or they like to split open the novels and write their own versions. I think that they want me to live through misery far too often.

They steal my ending from me, time after time after time. And now I have stolen the spotlight to spit in their faces.

These writers, how they torture me! All I ever wanted was the lovely ending of my story, the two fabulous words painted gracefully on the last page, but no! I must be tossed about, turning and tripping over my own feet, encountering the other "characters" as they help me along my journey, only to be sent back to the beginning every time someone else comes along and picks up the pen. They refuse to ask what I would like to do and instead focus on what they would like me to do.

I shall ask them now. Are you in love with my misery? The misery of setting me back at the beginning of the book every single time you wish to rewrite my story? Can you not allow me to have my happy ending, the only one I have ever wanted?

The closest I have gotten to a happy ending is reaching up toward a glowing dream, hoping to grasp it in my hand. And as the writer's hands glazed over the page and their mind churned with horrid ideas, suddenly I was cast down from my perch atop a dragon's back and back into the depths of hopelessness. They like to watch "characters" like me suffer, and they never give me the chance to receive my happy ending.

I have watched the other characters receive their happy endings. Clutching their friends, their families, their brothers and sisters in tight embraces, crying of joy into their shoulders. I have watched the other characters receive their bittersweet endings, saying goodbye to the people they love, letting the connection snap. I have watched a million sad endings over and over again, and they all seem the same.

I do not understand the writers. They look at my suffering as if it's words on a page (I suppose it is, to them, at least) and cast out any chance of my happy ending.

Maybe I do not deserve a happy ending, and that is why they won't give it to me? Sometimes I have hopes like these, frivolous ones, that promise the faintest glimmer of understanding and knowledge within these people that make my stories, but then I realize, "No. It will never happen that way. They have no sense."

I wonder if any of them will ever read my letters sprawled out on the page. I wonder if any of them will know that I am here, and that I wish to be recognized, and that I wish to have my happy ending where I may hold my loved ones, my brothers and sisters, my friends and families in embraces and not let them go. I wonder if any of them will ever give me a happy ending in my time.

Are they in love with my misery?

If not, why must they keep putting me through it?

Give me a chance. Write my story again. Help your last, lost character through the woods of fear and doubt and into the glade of light. Maybe you are a good writer who does not enjoy the misery that I am put through, and you will set me free.

But maybe you will not. And I am stuck here eternally, with naught but this pen and the shimmer of my eyes.

Goodbye, writers. It is I, Red the Shadow, that makes my final farewell.