The Furious Story. Part Seven: "Awakening"

For some time, the schoolteacher just sat in the darkness and drank his whiskey. Not a sound could be heard in the cottage – even the usual chirping of crickets and tree frogs was absent. It was as though the story had absorbed all sound and light in his anger. 

The schoolteacher felt the story's rage through the silence and his mind began to burn with a fever sparked by fear and fueled by alcohol.

The teacher decided to break the silence and end his torment. He reached for the candle and matches, intending to burn the journal and purge the story from his life. But in the darkness, he knocked the candle dish off the table and it crashed to the floor, shattering.  As he bent down to pick it up, the teacher struck his head on the table and fell to the floor in a drunken stupor, cutting his arm on the broken candle dish. As he laid motionless in the darkness, he could feel the warm blood trickle down his shirt. And now, though his eyes remained open, he fell out of consciousness into a delirious hypnotic state.

The schoolteacher began to see the stories of his life, as if projected on the walls of the darkened room. He heard voices of friends and foe, strangers and loved ones.

The teacher trembled recalling the cruelties of childhood – malicious name-calling and schoolyard fights. He felt the pain of humiliation and betrayal and could see the faces of his attackers – images that had long since been locked away. 

Along with painful moments, the schoolteacher experienced the unexpected joys of his past. The kind words of a stranger. The soft touch of his mother’s hand. The warmth of friends and encouragement of family. The teacher lay suspended between sleep and wakefulness all night, as his hallucinations raged on filled with both pain and pleasure.

As the first light of dawn finally began to pierce the oppressive darkness, the schoolteacher began to wake from his trance. Wiping off cold sweat and dried blood, he rolled over on the floor. 

The schoolteacher was weak and sick to his stomach from fever and drink, but he pulled himself up and sat at the table. Still feeling the echoes of the stories of his life, he was overcome with emotion and tears streamed down his cheeks. He reached for his pen and slowly opened the journal, fearful of what he might find inside. 

As he opened to the blackened page, the characters that filled the sheet began to fade away, one-by-one, until the page was clean and white. By now the sun had risen over the horizon giving the paper a warm glow. The teacher took his pen and began to write:

Once, at a very special moment in time, in a magical land, lived a remarkable person, and he was a...

...schoolteacher.

There was no interruption, no response at all from the story, so the schoolteacher continued:

And the magical land he lived in was a beautiful forest, filled with flowers and plants, birds and beasts. And the very special moment in time was now. 

Again there was no response from the story, but the schoolteacher had a feeling of confidence and purpose, so he continued to write, and he did so every day, until he finished the story, and the next one, and the next one.

And the stories, like the pages of his journal, were filled with more light than dark.

The end.