Destiny

Hello again! And welcome to my third installment of Flash Fiction Fridays!

This week I thought that I would walk you through a little bit of the creative process behind making short stories, or stories in general.

This week I decided to start with a simple question as the basis for my story: What if you only live until you achieve your destiny? That’s good, right? But now let’s add a little bit to it; What if you lived in a world where you knew that you would only live until you achieve your destiny… but you don’t know what that is until you have already achieved it? Now we have a setting, and a plot, so let’s bring it together; Our protagonist lives in just such a world… but he doesn't want to die young… We are now left with a single lingering question; how can you run from your destiny if you don’t know what it is? 

A quick reminder; these stories are likely to vary greatly, so if you have younger readers with you, you may want to screen the posts before sharing. I won't write anything kinky, I'm really not that type... But I may write slightly intense stories from time to time, or I may simply have some content that you don't want to get into with your kids right now... I will try to include a "common sense rating" for my stories every week though.

This story contains nothing inappropriate or age limiting... but its a coming of age/slightly deeper in subject matter. You'd be fine reading it to any age of kid... but they may enjoy it more if they were at least 6.

This week's story is called destiny

Hello, my name’s Alex, and I’m from a world not desperately unlike your own. As a matter of fact, my world’s almost identical to yours with only one big exception… God’s a little more prompt in taking us back home. You see, we all have a “destiny” of sorts to fulfill in the world, whether it’s raising children, spreading joy, or writing a hymn. Some people take a long time to discover their destiny, or to grow to the point where they can properly fulfill it, while others stumble upon it right away, and some destinies take a lifetime to finish, while others can be completed in a day. In our world, that’s the reason everyone lives different amounts of time and every child who has ever drawn breath in my world hopes for a fulfilling-lifelong destiny… except me.

Ever since I can remember, I was told by adults and children alike that I must have a great destiny ahead of me, as I was both smart, and gifted; able to sing as well as I could compute, and with an almost uncanny mind for philosophy. Please don’t misinterpret my frankness for gloating either; I would have given up these “gifts” and my “destiny” for a gumball. I was perhaps 8 or 9 years old when I realized that nearly all of the people who had “grand” destinies had all died quite abruptly, and more often than not, quite young, so I started hiding my gifts, hoping that God would forget to give me a grand destiny so that I would be free to live a normal life.

I was 15 when I decided to run away. All my friends at that time were trying to find, and cheat their destinies, by pushing their luck and building their adrenaline; as you can’t die by accident in this world… but you can get hurt. When they were hauled up on crutches they would speak with glittering eyes about the destinies they hoped that they possessed, some yearning for a grand “out like a candle” destiny, while the rest wanted a long burning destiny with plenty of hidden meaning. I thought that they were all fools, breaking their back dreaming of destiny… instead of putting their energies into avoiding one at all costs like I did, avoiding deeper relationships, any chance that I may have to follow my dreams, or really live at all, yet I still feared every change around me and the only way I could find to escape these, was to leave my life behind me and take to the road, where I could choose where I went next, or when I stopped.  

I was on the road until my 16th birthday. I collapsed in a cave in the mountains that I had been hiding in, unable to walk another step, let alone a mile. “Maybe God won’t be able to send me a destiny if I’m miles from anyone.” I had consoled myself. But I still feared every step, not knowing which one could lead me to my true destiny. I was too tired at that moment to worry any longer, however, and I fell promptly asleep, on the cold, dark, damp, floor of the cave. And while I slept, it started to rain.

I awoke to find a warm fire glowing next to my head, and an old man cooking up some delicious smelling beans.

“When did you get here?” I asked, frightened by finding a stranger where there hadn’t been one before my nap. He smiled as he stirred the tangy brown goodness and commented, 

“I dunno, an hour or so I guess… It was raining awful hard, and you were sound asleep so I ducked in for cover.” I nodded and crossed over to the mouth of the cave. It certainly had been raining hard, for quite a while too, as I could see that the path I had hiked up to get there, was flowing like a waterfall, just like all the other paths around it… We were stuck. 

I settled back beside the fire and that old gentleman, (whose name he never did share,) kindly offered me a bowl of beans, and as I had been living off of what I could find, I gladly excepted. Whether it was malnourishment that made it this way I’ll never know, but those simple cookfire beans were the most delicious things that I had ever tasted in my life, and I quickly wolfed down an entire bowl. To which he only laughed and dished me out another full bowl.

“These are amazing! They must be your destiny gift!” I exclaimed, (a common compliment in my world.) 

“Thank you, but they’re not my destiny, just an old recipe from my father.” I was puzzled, I had met a few people who were sure of their destinies before, but they would always show their destinies in some way or other, whether it was by the clothes they wore and the leanings of their heart. But he only looked like a mountain man to me, and yet he was SO certain.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“My destiny is pretty obvious, can’t you see it?” I shook my head in confusion, “I help people who have followed the wrong path, and help them back.” 

“So you’re a spiritual leader?” He laughed good-naturedly.

“Sometimes, but more literally I’m a park ranger.”

“Oh! So you literally help people who got lost?”

“Yep… and I’ve seen some pretty lost people… do you know that I’ve met a few people in these mountains who were trying to hide from their destinies… from God Himself?”

“Huh, that’s interesting,” I commented cautiously, although I suspected that he already knew that I fell into this group of people.

“Yeah, almost none of them fooled anyone, especially themselves.” I knew that I must have looked codswalloped but I couldn’t help it. “Half of them run into their destinies in these mountains, as I did… and the others learn to embrace the fact that they already knew; that destiny is a terrible, impossible, thing to waste. They make themselves miserable by hiding themselves until they burst out like a firecracker, their true selves overflowing, and embrace the lives they were meant to live.”

I didn’t want to listen to him, as I had heard similar messages for most of my life, but I couldn’t leave in the rain, besides, I knew that it would be pretty cold outside, and the fire had built cozy blaze, so I stayed.

He left after I had fallen asleep, and though I would never meet him again, his words continued to echo around my head in the quiet cave until I couldn’t take it anymore. I was miserable, just like he had said, and I needed to do SOMETHING, rather than just continuing to hide for the rest of my life. So I set myself a challenge; if God could see me anywhere, and give me a destiny anywhere, I would move to the town. If I hated it or felt my death drawing nearer, I would move back to my cave.

As I sit here, in my worn rocking chair, on the front stoop of the house I moved into, I can tell you that I never regretted it. Though there were moments that I wanted to; when that awful fire burned down half the town when my daughter reached her shining destiny and I buried the husk that she had left behind, and whenever my heart was broken by the life I had chosen. Yet I couldn’t hate it; without that step, I never would have helped to build that town, I never would have had a daughter at all, and I would have never had heart enough to break. I found my destiny alright, but I didn’t hide from it while I was in the mountains; I found it. I didn’t die when I found my destiny, I lived. Here is the secret very few are wise enough to see, and fewer still are willing to share; whether you die young, or live a long life, the best moments of your life will be found when you are walking your destiny road, whether it’s long and winding, or a quick, yet shocking beautiful sprint. And you can’t hide from God, but you sure can make yourself miserable by trying.

Thanks for the read!

If you have any ideas for a short story that you'd like to see me tackle please share it below!