History

Screams rang out in the distance.

Stop. Breathe. She had to calm down. If she did not slow down and find the book, there was no point anyway. She breathed in, closed her eyes and breathed out again - trying to remember her mother's words.

"Where the story begins - on the inside."

Ugh. So cryptic. Why did everything have to have a moral, a personal test? Such an incredible and incredibly infuriating woman. She missed her so much that it still made her chest feel like an empty, jagged well.

She sat in the rotting old chair in front of the desk and opened her eyes. She was sure this is where it had all begun, at least for her mother. She had heard her mother’s stories of writing in the book at her desk countless times, incidentally memorizing every detail about how to do what she needed to do now.

But the inside? What could that mean?

She knew that her mother had tried so many times to write it - the one story that could change everything: A new cure for another disease ravaging the world created by a scientist who had found love of his work through personal tragedy; Political peace and asylum for two groups determined to kill each other and start a new war, with just one kind act that rippled outward; Retribution for the oppressed through the opening of one heart; The restructure of a social system encouraged by one person standing up and telling their truth; An amazing machine made by an average child to clean the oceans that were now too polluted to save. Each time, the story had moved history. It had set a new orientation point on the trajectory of the world. But it was never enough.

By the time that her mother fell ill, she had let herself become jaded. Angry at her mother's ceaseless attempts to fill her life with selfless acts that had left her almost destitute, she had ceased almost all contact. It didn't matter how many times her mother insisted she was happy - their vision of how the world worked simply did not add up to the same answer. It didn’t matter how her mother had tried to heal their relationship – she remained stubborn until it was too late. It didn’t even matter when she received the 20,000 credits after her mother had died. She wished she could take it all back - and she desperately hoped now that the fable was real.

She remembered being happy. Sitting for hours listening to her mother read the stories contained between the soft, dark Moleskin® cover: A heroin behind the pen. Generation after generation teaching each other to write the stories that could rewrite the future. Her favorite was the story of the abolitionists - it was so terrible and romantic. The notion that one human being inspired to help others could change the course of history… Brought about by the simple imaginings of a woman who believed in her fellow human beings enough to write a new story for one of them that would then lead them to complete that destiny? All of this "simply from putting pen to paper" her mother had said.

She had been promised this destiny: the ability to influence the shaping of the world and enough one day save the world, if she only could keep the oath and have the courage enough to believe it was true.

"All great things in this world started with just an idea that someone decided to write down." her mother had quoted from the book, her eyes shining.

As she grew and the world grew terrible, she had started to doubt what her mother had said. She stopped believing in the power of the stories. Too much time had passed since anything had been added to the book.

The air grew warmer and she could feel her respirator working overtime to keep up with the particulates increasing in the dusty attic. The foundation was losing stability and she could hear the chaos outside growing.

She had to find it.

She pulled out the drawer and searched through the rotting paper, old rusting paperclips and… Nothing.

Wait.

She ran as fast as she could through the smoky hallway, trying to remember the way from when she was a child.

Left. Down the stairs. Right. Second door.

She looked across the hallway and could make out the door jamb that she knew led into the room where her mother had died. Her stomach dropped. No time.

The pink wallpaper with little cats on it was barely recognizable, coated with shades of grey, brown and green from years of exposure to the toxic environment. She caught one of the cat’s pretentious little eyes peering down at her as she walked up to the desk - daring her to question her belief again. She hoped this was right.

The desk was still smooth in some places from the hours her mother had no doubt spent sanding and whitewashing the surface to match the room. So many memories. There was still a sticker half-peeled off on one of the edges - She remembered with fondness how upset her mother had been at first, but then she had found a package of stickers on her desk the next day with a note from... from the book! It had said "Create beauty any way you see possible. Love, Mom". The note was from the book and she had kept it inside under the desk in the special drawer that only held a few small items - her heart soared with possibility.

She gingerly pulled the middle drawer down to reveal the hidden compartment that her mother had crafted into the desk.

A small corner of a black book covered in dust peeked out. She smiled and pulled out a pen.