The Eternal Scribe

Introduction

I have had this image shared by The Enchanted Booklet on Facebook in my saved list for a long time. This Vocal Challenge has finally freed it.

The music is "Mad Alice Lane (Ghost Story)" by Lawlor

The Eternal Scribe

Work was getting to him. It frightened him. All those ledgers, all those numbers, all that writing. What if he made a mistake? What if someone found out? The managers were not sympathetic and were always increasing the workload. When questioned, their excuse was:

"Well, that's the way it is. If you don't like it or can't cut it, you know where the door is"

It was the same for everyone, but everyone needed a job to pay for their rent and food, although there was never anything left over for pleasure. Life was work - sleep - work - sleep -work. There was no respite, and it was getting worse every day. This office was a living hell for everyone, but every office in this place was the same.

And now the dreams had started.

The dream was him chained to a desk, and the ink was his own blood, continually updating numbers in a ledger, and if he didn't do it, there would be consequences, but those consequences were as yet unspecified.

So he wrote.

Although he was in a dream, this felt real, and so close to how he worked during the day. Although during the day there were no physical chains, he was chained to his work by his need for accommodation and food. He, like the others, was chained by financial servitude. The dream office was dark, and the managers were nothing but shadows, but threatening and dangerous shadows.

He woke, shattered. These dreams were destroying him, but he had to go to work, which was almost as much of a nightmare as his dreams, although he wasn't chained, and he could use ink rather than his own blood. He was becoming more frightened that one day he would not wake up, and he would be chained to that table, filling out ledgers with a quill pen using his own blood as ink.

He got home again, shattered. He ate and then went straight to bed and into the nightmare again. This was work, but worse. How much blood would it take to fill these ledgers? Then he seemed to wake.

He was not in his bed.

He was chained to a desk, with a ledger and a quill. His feet were chained, too. This place was a dark, damp cellar, and he felt a spectral presence behind him whispering.

"Your dream is over. This is your life now. You are an Eternal Scribe. You will write the stories of the world with your own blood."

He noticed tubes from his arm that were draining his blood into an ink well on his desk.

"You will fill in the correct numbers to drive the stories of the lives of those on Earth. If you make a mistake, disasters will occur, maybe a plane crash, maybe a plague or a military massacre. A child may be lost. Do not make a mistake. This is your existence now, and it will have no end."

"But what do I get from this? Why am I doing this?"

"You are given existence. Your option is nothing. You become nothing. In this existence, you serve a purpose, but you can always give up and become nothing. We give you a choice."

He knew he had no choice at all. If he kept filling in the numbers, he might do some good, and he would still exist, but this was not life.

He did not know if he was doing good.

As the minutes passed, nothing was looking like a possible option.