The Furious Story. Part Six: "Darkness"

The schoolteacher carefully buried the bird beneath the rock and stomped back into the house, flinging open the journal and tightly clenching his pen. "You want me to write what I know?" Said the schoolteacher to the story. "Then you shall have it!" And with this he began to write:

Once, at a very special moment in time, in a magical land, lived a remarkable animal, a noble bird that fought for his freedom and died in the battle. 

Then he drew a picture of the bird, an accurate portrayal, only more regal in stature with a purposeful gaze. 

But as he finished the drawing, he saw the story's words again appear on the page, only this time the characters formed softly, in a shade of grey, not black. The schoolteacher sensed more disappointment than anger as he read the words: "This is not a story about a bird."

"Oh yes it is!" Said the schoolteacher. "This bird's life inspires me."

"What do you know of the bird's life?" Wrote the story. 

"I know it well," said the teacher, "he sought comfort and warmth in the shelter of this house, but found only confinement." And now the bird in the drawing lowered his head in sadness as the schoolteacher continued."

"He fought for his freedom, but he was blind to the only means of achieving it. He chose death above imprisonment." And with this, the bird in the drawing lay down and closed his eyes.

"Interesting." Wrote the story. "Perhaps a fitting analogy, but this is NOT your story. It is a handful of sentences at most, representing a few moments in time, a fragment of a day, not an entire life." Wrote the story. 

"Do you suggest you know what motivated that bird to enter the house?" Wrote the story more angrily.

"Perhaps it was the search for food that drove him, not comfort. Perhaps he did not seek escape, because he had not yet found what he came for; a few morsels of bread to take back to his offspring, now starving in the hollow of a tree!" The story continued in a furious tone as a drawing of baby birds in a nest appeared on the page. 

"Perhaps it was duty, not freedom that took his life. How do you know you haven't trivialized his labors – cheapened his life – by suggesting he sought only comfort and freedom! Do you think him so shallow that his only motivation was to serve himself?" The story angrily continued.

"And why do you see the beasts of burden you muse about as slaves and not heroes." Continued the story, now changing the subject from the bird, whose image faded from the page. "Do they not willingly accept the yoke? Their labor is not without purpose – they plow the earth so that we may make bread!"

"STOP this torment!" Said the schoolteacher, taking a long drink from the dark bottle. The room had now darkened with nightfall, illuminated only by a single candle that cast the pages of the journal in a warm brown. 

"I am weary of your harassment." The schoolteacher slurred. "This is MY story, NOT yours!"

As he looked at the book, the schoolteacher saw his own words form on the page. "This is MY story!" The story wrote in large, angry letters. And then letters of all sizes formed on every part of the page. They glided across the parchment in chaos. Letters. Numbers. Punctuation too. Periods and semicolons blasted through the letters like shrapnel as the page continued to darken with an angry, swirling mass of characters and symbols. The candle flickered as a dreadful gloom filled the room. And soon the letters filled every empty space. And the page was black.

And then the journal slammed shut so hard that the blast of air blew out the candle, leaving the schoolteacher alone in the darkness.