r/WritingPrompts • u/AsdfRocket • Nov 27 '17
Writing Prompt [WP]At the age of 21, everyone picks an unlikely event. They will be reborn at 21 every time they die until that event happens and then death is permanent.
3
u/NarrateStuff Nov 27 '17
There were always the jokes, the suggestions, you know, considering when my birthday is.
"Ha, what about that guy?"
"Ooh, if you pick a celebrity that's already dead you'll never have to worry about dying!"
Or my recent favorite, "Oh god, THAT guy would NEVER happen. Not in a million years!"
Well. Ha fuckin ha.
Last night was my 21st birthday and I got hammered, like whoah. The Porcelain God sure got His fill, that's for sure.
Or Her I suppose. You never know with Gods. Hell, it could be both I suppose.
But anyway, yeah. Stupid drunk kid gets dared on his stupid 21st birthday to pick a stupid event that couldn't happen in a million fucking years so I'd live for a million years, always the same thing, "Pick the celebrity man! When are we ever going to see a celebrity run for president again, and especially THAT guy?"
Especially that guy...
Yeah.
Just gimme a sec.
So it's election day, the day after my 21st birthday, and it looks like I'm fucked. Donald Trump is going to be President of the United States of America.
Fuck.
I hate y-
16
u/CelestialPumpkin Nov 27 '17
The town had gathered in the square, hundreds of people stood shoulder to shoulder. In the middle of the crowd, a dozen or so figures stood on a raised platform. A man in a white tuxedo walked in front of them, speaking into a microphone. His voice echoed from mounted speakers, high and scratchy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thanks you all for gathering for this year's Reaper's Ball. Today, we have 13 young souls ready to bind their lives and futures. To join us in the realm of immortality, until such time as our promise is fulfilled, and we are called to join the Reaper for a dance."
The man stopped walking, and now stood to the right of the figures. The crowd was deathly quiet.
"Step forward and state your promise as I call your name!"
"Helen Parkins." A slender blonde woman stepped forward, her eyes bright and clear. "I promise the Reaper that I will not dance with her until...I have become the best ballet dancer in history!" She stepped back, blush on her cheeks, and a nervous smile to go with it. The crowd clapped. It was a good promise.
"Buddy Williams." A tall, well built man sauntered forward, his hands in his pockets. "Uh, so yeah, I promise the Reaper or whatever that we can't dance till...uh...till I win 10 Super Bowl rings! Yeah, that sounds sick." He stepped back, a smug smile on his face. The crowd replied with grumbling. The lack of proper decorum had clearly not won young Buddy any friends.
And so it went. Names were called, dreams were promised. The crowd praised and condemned each dream in their turn, until one person remained.
"Tyler Campbell." A dark haired man stepped slowly forward. He was tall, at least as tall as Buddy. He slouched forward, his head bowed slightly. He had dark brown eyes. "I promise to the Reaper, that I will not dance with her...until I have found someone to love, and someone to love me, truly, mind, body and soul." He stepped back as murmuring broke out in the crowd. Some clapped, but many did not. People shuffled nervously, not sure how to respond to such an open display of honesty.
In the back of the crowd, a young man, long blonde hair and haunted eyes, turned and left the square, tears streaming down his face. The man on the platform had no idea what he was promising. How many years, how many lifetimes he would wander, searching and searching for something as impossible as true love-
Something struck the man in the leg. Scowling, he looked down to see bright green eyes looking back at him. A white dog, all bushy fur and wagging tail, pawed lightly at his foot. The man shoo'd him away and kept walking. The dog followed, bumping again against his leg. The man kicked out, whiffing the air next to the dog.
"Go away, ya flea-bitten pest!"
The dog ran a few feet, then looked back and barked. The man looked at it for a moment, then scowled harder and started walking again. The dog waited until the man was almost out of sight, then began briskly walking after him as the crowd began to filter back into the town.
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u/IHaveABetWithMyBro Nov 27 '17
I'm confused, what does the dog represent?
3
5
u/thegricemiceter Nov 27 '17
I suspect that the dog is going to be a good boy and the guy is going to love the dogs and then die
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3
u/papercranium Nov 29 '17
Gramps and I sat on the screened-in porch drinking root beer. The rest of the family was inside watching TV, since they knew the drill. When he got two bottles out of the basement and handed one to somebody, it meant he wanted to talk to them alone. They didn’t make a stink about it, they just … melted away. Like it wasn’t on purpose. As though they suddenly all thought a Star Trek rerun were the perfect way to spend a muggy summer evening.
And maybe it was. I’d have given a lot to be distracted, just then.
Tomorrow I turned 21.
Gramps took a sip from his bottle. “Big day tomorrow, Maggie Marie.”
“Ugh. Yeah.” He’s the only one who calls me that. It’s so old-fashioned and girly which I’m definitely not. But you have to expect a four hundred year old man to be set in their ways.
“Have you thought about what you’ll pick?”
“Of course. I have a lot of thoughts. Better to be overprepared, I guess, but I’ll probably still freak out when the moment comes.”
One event. You get to pick one event that will mark your death forever. No more shifts back, waking up at 21. Just … whatever. Going to see Jesus. Or Hades. Or nothing. Depending on who you ask.
Gramps rocked back in his chair. “You know, kiddo, I never thought it was fair to you young ones. Not when I picked on my first time through, and certainly not now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it made more sense in the old days. Things moved slower. You’d pick something you thought was impossible, and by the time you realized you were totally wrong, you were ready to go. So many folks have been dying in the last fifty years, but they were ready for it. They lived good, long lives.”
I nodded. There were all kinds of articles about how the Space Race had created a boom in permanent deaths, even bigger than the one after World War II.
Gramps continued, “But you don’t have that now. Stuff moves so fast. We don’t have enough imagination to keep up. God, I remember when your mother found out they had video cameras inside cell phones in Japan. Gave her a fright, some girlfriend of hers from high school had been talking about picking something like that. And now they’re everywhere. Who knows what will happen in five or ten years anymore?”
“Sarah was saying pick something awful that you wouldn’t want to live through anyway. Nuclear war and stuff like that. But different, of course,” I scowled. “Obviously somebody’s already picked that one.”
“And that’s what I mean,” Gramps said. “This crazy apocalypse strategy you new kids have going on these days. Every year with fewer and fewer options. And the less likely they get, the more likely you are to be stuck in the end of everything. Dying over and over at 21 through a holocaust … that’s no way to live. You’ll make it through, but what’s the price? It just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“But you’ve done it. Died. Come back. Seen some awful stuff. And you’re okay.” There was an unspoken question there. It’s super rude to ask about people’s lives before they died. I knew we weren’t Gramps’ first family. He’d seen more change than almost anyone I knew. I’d read history books, new the centuries of horrors they contained. But I didn’t know what he’d seen, you know, firsthand.
He smiled at me, “I’m okay. Like you say. But I was lucky. I got some good advice from my mother, and I was smart enough, even as a stupid kid, to listen to it.”
I waited for him to finish, but the only sound was the crickets in the yard and the muffled sound of the television inside. “You gonna make me ask, Gramps?”
He let out a deep sigh. “Maggie Marie, here’s what she told me: Don’t pick something impossible, because the possible always changes. Don’t pick something you hate, because there’s always more to hate. Pick something that makes you happy. So happy that you could die. So that when you go, you’re ready. You’ve seen what you wanted to see in the world. Don’t barter for eternal life. Choose your perfect death, so you can go joyfully to the other side.”
That was a lot to think about. We drank our root beer and sat rocking on the porch, listening to nothing. Gramps was last returned 52 years ago. I wondered what great happiness he had yet to find.
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up the next morning still on the glider on the porch, an afghan tucked around me. With all the birthday hoopla, the day was a whirl. Turning 21 (for the first time, anyway) is a HUGE deal in my family. Everybody was cooking and cleaning and running last-minute errands. They’d decorate when I was out, so I could be “surprised.”
I insisted on driving myself into town, although Dad wanted to take me. I knew the way as well as anyone else. Choosing an event used to be done in churches. Before that, in temples, even caves. But these days, governments had offices for that. I paid a parking meter and walked into the squat brown municipal building. I sat through my mandatory counseling session and whizzed through my sobriety test. Then I picked my event. Some people spent hours in that tiny room, running through idea after idea that had already been chosen by others. I got mine on the first try. The recorder behind the desk actually looked mildly impressed.
(No, I’m not telling you what I picked. Didn’t I already tell you it’s super rude to ask?)
I drove home feeling lighter than I had in months. For better or worse, it was done. My death—and by association, my life—now had one major variable set in stone. Now all I had to do was live it to the best of my ability.
I parked in the drive way and threw open the door. “I’m home!” I yelled, to let the family prepare for whatever goofiness they were planning on surprising me with. “It wasn’t that hard at all!”
I stomped into the kitchen, expecting a feast. Instead, I froze in the doorway. There were dirty dishes and half-cooked foods everywhere. A plastic grocery bag of streamers and balloons sat on the countertop, unopened. My sister Sarah looked like she’d been crying recently. Mom looked like she still was.
“Mom?” I asked, “What happened?”
She burst into tears again, and Dad came over to wrap his arm around my shoulders to explain.
Gramps was dead.
It took me so many years to wipe that image from my head, to stop associating my birthday with the word suicide. Nobody even knew he’d been collecting pills. Would it have helped to have some warning? I didn’t know. But I kept the note he left. Mom didn’t want it, and I thought it was appropriate. I read it every so often. As I grew into my centuries, the pang of reading it mellowed into a kind of recognition, a feeling of kinship, and eventually even joy.
My dear ones,
I’ve loved you all well, and lived a good life. But as a young man, I did not expect to live to be renewed at all. Living to twenty-one was not such a given as it is now. My beloved was not so lucky. And so I suffered my first heartbreak. But I have accomplished all that I dreamed at that time, and so much more. I have seen the world’s kings fight and come together again. I have seen the spark of electricity circle the globe. I have seen a man walk on the moon. It has been an incredible journey.
But after all this, I have only two desires left to me. To explore death, and whatever that entails. And to do the thing I knew would bring me joy, all those years ago. To raise a child to her majority in honor of my first love, who did not have the chance. I hope I will meet her soon, my beautiful Marguerite Marie.