Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-5101683-20180630233314

Ramanuj Sarkar hadn't expected to find himself within a house made of oak, but he had no time to be confused before it spoke to him.

"Ramanuj Sarkar, you have died."

He looked behind him to see an old man who was about as tall as he was. There didn't seem to be anything particularly special about him. He looked like someone's grandfather, but every time Ramanuj even blinked, he changed exactly how he looked like someone's grandfather. Then he became a girl, and it ceased to make any sense according to gender pronouns. Ramanuj was too afraid to do anything, because he was a wimp, but he sensed that even though there was a deep fear inside him, he felt reassured by the presence of this being.

"Ramanuj, you must understand why you feel the way that you do."

At first, Ramanuj didn't answer. He knew what the being was talking about. He felt out of balance, as if his life was irreparably damaged and he hadn't done anything. He didn't want to know what he had done, but he wanted to do something, anything at all. And so, challenging the brave men who had been named Ramanuj before him, he spoke.

"Yes, I know."

The silence was an unwelcome guest. It gnawed at him like the biggest tapeworm in the world, in his belly and around him at the same time. His mouth was a yawing echo chamber, the tapeworm's entrance and exit, and he tried to make the metaphor his reality and extinguish the fear by closing his mouth. But try as he might, he could not do it. His mouth hanging open like every science-class skeleton's, Ramanuj stared at nothing in particular, hoping beyond all logic that somehow, something would change.

He tried to lay eyes on the being who had made him feel reassured, but panic rushed through his body - an ever-bolder parasite - as he could not find the being. His eyes rolled back in his skull as he tried to process what exactly was going on. He didn't know what the problem was anymore, so he cast his eyes back on the story playing through his mind, and suddenly he found the answer.

"Wait," he said, not quite closing his mouth, "I don't know." His mouth was reassuringly close to being closed, but the tapeworm of his silence/guilt/fear sensed this and redoubled its efforts, snaking into his intestines. He tried not to flinch as his anxiety overtook him. Perhaps in a different world than the one he had inhabited before finding himself in a room made of oak, he would have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. But that train of thought was derailed when the being's sudden shouting made him clench his teeth so hard that a great deal of the tapeworm fell to the ground, disintegrating as it was forgotten.

"Yes! Ramanuj Sarkar, you do not know! You do not understand! You simply pretend to understand, and I know because I am you!"

He exhaled with such force that the tapeworm had no choice but to eject itself from his bowels. He thought about how that could be taken literally, but he scrapped the idea and simply pushed it out of his mind alongside pushing the metaphorical tapeworm out of his metaphorical digestive tract. The being could be heard letting out an audible sigh as well, and the tension had dissipated to the point where Ramanuj could talk to some extent.

"I hadn't known that," he said. "I had thought that you were some god. But now that I know who you are, I know that I am really safe!"

"You are," the being said, beaming at him with such unfiltered joy that he had no choice but to smile back.

"I think I know what I did, but you should explain it because I don't know why I'm here," said Ramanuj, trying to be humble but fearing that this honesty would somehow cause him harm.

The being seemed to understand his struggle. "Do not worry. I will tell you."

It rose up, holding a stick so that it resembled some god. "You wrote a story about how the Christian god was unkind. This was in your control, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Ramanuj. He was beginning to feel distressed again, but he didn't know how else to feel in the face of his ever-present defectiveness.

"You realized that it was unkind to take the title of someone else and pretend it was your own, but it was too late. The story began sucking your life, and you were unable to write another."

"Yes!" cried Ramanuj, unable to hold back tears. He had no idea how this story, the one that he was in at the moment, wouldn't be deleted, but he didn't want to bring it up because the punishment made him feel stronger somehow.

"You looked back upon your other true story, and you saw that it alienated the mentally ill. This angered you beyond belief, didn't it?"

Ramanuj began to answer, but then realized the significance of the question's wording. He thought for two seconds, and the answer flowed from his mouth like a river of silk. "No. I felt sad, so sad that I wished to never write again."

"Good!" the being said. "You feel remorse towards others, not anger towards yourself, and this shows that you are not in the wrong."

Ramanuj felt lighter than he had for months. He realized then how insignificant it was. It couldn't have been more than five months since he had written his horrible, somewhat plagiarized story. It was nothing; no one cared enough to talk about it. He could simply request it be destroyed and be done with it!

As if reading his mind, the being nodded, saying, "This is an extraordinary stroke of luck. Take it in stride. You will write other stories, and no one can doubt that."

The being began to fade, but Ramanuj was emboldened. "This is a site for frightening things, isn't it? This isn't frightening."

The being was about to ask if Ramanuj really wanted to be tortured, but Ramanuj beat him to it. "Being, my friend, my brother, you know how much you care about me now. We may share a name, but we also share that name with, like, twelve people on Facebook. And they're all engineers and stuff. Nobody cares about us - me" He began to stammer, but the being put up a hand.

"You're right. I no longer care for you. That said, I will see you in my dreams, and I will never forget you."

Ramanuj stood ramrod-straight as his worst fear emerged from the being's hand. The tapeworm coiled around him, and it was even more frightening now that it wasn't a clumsy personification of his feelings. He cried out from the pain, and the tapeworm lunged at him, going into his mouth and worming its way through his esophagus. Ramanuj could no longer feel anything, and he looked at the being, who shot him a thumbs-up. Ramanuj almost smiled, but then he realized that might hurt the tapeworm, and so he laughed instead.

"Say, are you trying to imply that you want someone else to do this to you?" he asked as he slowly died, as the being took the pain away from him.

"Gee, your parents really won't like the fact that you're writing this. Neither will your college counselor."

"When are you going to stop writing? These aren't even one-liners."

"This was a bad idea. This ending isn't even really that scary, is it?"

The tapeworm writhed through his gut.

"No, wait, it is scary." It was him again.

"Or maybe not." He then realized that it was a stupid endeavor and that the entire point of the story was to delete another story, and so he decided to end it all by saying, "I give up." 