The Game
Flash Fiction | 4 Minute Read
Last weekend my brother and I spent a long time in a car together. We got to talking about stories about space, aliens and creation myths. He told me about a story he was writing and I told him about a couple I had written. When I told him about this one, I realized I hadn’t shared it here on Story Hoarder yet. So here is THE GAME, a story inspired by a writing prompt I shared on the NV Rivera YouTube channel all the way back in 2020. I hope you enjoy the read.
This is a 3-4 minute read.
THE GAME
In the beginning, when I went ahead and created it all, I wasn’t thinking it would be this big of a deal. I had created a whole bunch of planets before Earth. I had toyed with all the chemicals, but I didn’t know there was a combination of them that would yield this kind of life. Planets were my play things, just created as part of a game -- something like what you people call marbles, I guess. Anyway, I was really trying to diversify the colors I made, that’s all. I knew the water stuff made for a nice blue. I couldn’t decide if I wanted the Earth to be covered in it or if I wanted to break it up with something else.
As I pondered my next addition to the blue ball, life started. I can’t say what came first because, in all honesty, I wasn’t paying much attention, but I remember one of the first things I saw moving down there was a scarab beetle. It skittered across the sand and I was confused. I hadn’t created that much sand in the first place. Now, I know all the planets have their own types of natural evolutions, so the sand looked to be a curious off-shoot of something I didn’t fully understand about the water planet I had birthed, but the bug? I had never seen anything like it in my infinite time of existence! It terrified me -- the way it moved and how small it was.
I tried to get close to it, but that’s when I noticed there was so, so much more going on around me. You see, because apparently time moves so much differently for me than the life on the planet, I had missed some stuff you people claim to have in your history. By the time I looked down there was a scarab beetle, those giant pyramids and I guess whoever built them. I‘ve heard your stories about those big ol’ dinosaurs and the huge “asteroid” that hit them, but I think I would have noticed that.
Or maybe not. I’ve always loved playing with the sun, so I did get a little distracted over there. Maybe I lost a chunk of sun? I don’t know…
The point is this. I didn’t know anything was down there -- mostly because nothing was supposed to be down there -- until the beetle and the pyramids. In fact, for quite some time, I was sure the beetle built the pyramids.
I was confused. None of this was supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to happen. I was just getting ready for my game. I didn’t know who I could tell or ask about you. No one had ever talked about one of their marbles sustaining life! I mean, I want you to stop and think about this for a moment, because I think we are at the point where maybe you can think about such a thing. I’ve seen your books and -- wow -- I just, I don’t know what you are exactly, but I am starting to think that maybe the only ones who can explain how this happened are… well… you.
So here is a thought experiment. Imagine you knew how to make marbles. Imagine you set out to make the coolest set of marbles you could -- just to impress the other marble makers. But, remember, all you want is marbles. And then imagine that during the process LIFE STARTS TO DEVELOP on the surface of one of your marbles! Can you fully embody the extreme freak-out I was experiencing, not only when I discovered the beetle, but then again later when I discovered YOU and all of your creative brilliance?It’s been a bit of a day over here. I am trying to figure out what to do next, but I can hardly keep up with you -- there are wars and systems of justice and I can’t count how many books! And how many of those books have been written about what I guess is me? Am I the God? Strictly speaking I did create you and all that, but what if it wasn’t intentional? I read one of your books that said I made you in my image and uh, all I can say about that is: uuuhhh… nah… not exactly, and I don’t think we want to spend too much time exploring that.
The pyramids still stand but I’ve seen your homes transform from cloth covered teepees to wooden cabins to multilevel constructions I don’t even understand, and I watched your weaponry go from hand to hand combat, to bows and arrows, to guns, to …
It’s gone too far.
Could I have created such a horror?
I see all of your attempts at justice and some of them are commendable, while others are atrocious. I have seen you love and care for each other and all of the other living things crawling around the ball, but I’ve also seen the other side.
I don’t know what to do.
I hear your songs and I see your art and I wish some of you could have the power to be a marble maker like me because I would love to see what you could create, but what are you? What is the point of all of you?
All I wanted was a game to play.
There is a fix. It is in every marble maker’s kit, because we all make mistakes. Not every marble is perfect, and some just aren’t fixable, so we send them through the keyhole in the dark. I think some of you have found some of them. Sometimes I like the elegant simplicity of your descriptions of things in my life. You call the keyholes “black holes” which is great… because they are black holes in the sky, but they are so much more. They are also like marble magnets. If a marble needs to be erased I just have to tip it closer to the keyhole and let the magnet do the work. The marble -- and usually whatever else is near it -- will be sucked in and never seen again. The elements will be decomposed and put back in my creator kit.
So here’s what I can’t decide: would that be saving you from yourselves, or would that be stopping you from saving yourselves?
I have no other powers here. I can offer you destruction, or I can offer you this life. Given the choices, which game would you prefer to play?
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The inspiration
If you would like to see the cubes that inspired this story, watch the video below!