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literature
Do You Fancy a Bit of Paradox?
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Literature Text
Do you fancy a bit of paradox? Why then, look here. For though all paths are before you, but one can you take. For all things you can be, only one you can become. For all the choices you have, almost all are without your grasp. It is my fancy, my cruel gambit. My one rule, as you play my game. You can have everything, but yet, only one thing.
Say not that I am cruel, for I have rolled the dice, and lent my advice. It would be easiest, you see, for you to go here, see this, and do that. To jump here, this high, and fall here. I have stretched down across conception, down to caress your life with my strange, numbered limbs, and how they come to rest dictates the path you should tread. But that is no game, no game at all! A fancy of chance, a flick of the wrist, from start to finish! No, that is just the setting.
The game, my friend, is simple. Step closer, and listen, for though I tell every man, every woman, I only ever say this once, and it is easily forgotten in the petit mal of conception.
You do not have to follow the path. My job is done; I have hewn the board from rock, the pieces from dead stars, the rule from my own heart, and the path from the numbers cast. I have made you, and the rest is up to you. Do you wander along the trail and admire the design I have laid out for you? Oh, it is so intricate, so lovely and precious! The wonders I have scrawled upon the fabric of your path should stop and make any man who looks closely enough weep tears of confused, strange and terrified joy. Is that not enough?
Or will you sit up, take stock, and plunge into the undergrowth with curiosity and determination beating their twin pulses in your veins, icy steel and burning passion intermingling in a perfect dance? It is not what I have written. It will not be easy. But... it is there.
As you stray from the path of distilled chance, there will be an ache, a restraint. Learn that feeling. It will become your companion, your burden, your adversary. It will sink its tendrils into your mind and body. It will try to pull you back from the edge, to cease the exertion and bring an end to the trials you face, to haul you back on the path. You will strive and fight to climb each peak and cross every valley not on the map. Yesterdays protests are to-days goals and tomorrows victories, milestones amid the regression of your internal protests.
It will never be easy, to fight the preordained.
You may call me a cruel master, but I am neither cruel nor your master. I am an architect, and nothing more. It is your calling to make of everything what you will, and there are no shoulders that the weight will rest upon but yours. If, should you choose to bend and reforge those numbers I rattled around a cosmic cup at your inception, be warned.
I have rolled you once, and twice to be sure. Snake eyes, the gambler's curse, and upon you it has laid the easiest trail, and the thickest undergrowth. Your trials, should you stray from my path, shall be torturous and magnificently oppressive.
But the rewards?
Ah... does not Fate favor the bold?
Say not that I am cruel, for I have rolled the dice, and lent my advice. It would be easiest, you see, for you to go here, see this, and do that. To jump here, this high, and fall here. I have stretched down across conception, down to caress your life with my strange, numbered limbs, and how they come to rest dictates the path you should tread. But that is no game, no game at all! A fancy of chance, a flick of the wrist, from start to finish! No, that is just the setting.
The game, my friend, is simple. Step closer, and listen, for though I tell every man, every woman, I only ever say this once, and it is easily forgotten in the petit mal of conception.
You do not have to follow the path. My job is done; I have hewn the board from rock, the pieces from dead stars, the rule from my own heart, and the path from the numbers cast. I have made you, and the rest is up to you. Do you wander along the trail and admire the design I have laid out for you? Oh, it is so intricate, so lovely and precious! The wonders I have scrawled upon the fabric of your path should stop and make any man who looks closely enough weep tears of confused, strange and terrified joy. Is that not enough?
Or will you sit up, take stock, and plunge into the undergrowth with curiosity and determination beating their twin pulses in your veins, icy steel and burning passion intermingling in a perfect dance? It is not what I have written. It will not be easy. But... it is there.
As you stray from the path of distilled chance, there will be an ache, a restraint. Learn that feeling. It will become your companion, your burden, your adversary. It will sink its tendrils into your mind and body. It will try to pull you back from the edge, to cease the exertion and bring an end to the trials you face, to haul you back on the path. You will strive and fight to climb each peak and cross every valley not on the map. Yesterdays protests are to-days goals and tomorrows victories, milestones amid the regression of your internal protests.
It will never be easy, to fight the preordained.
You may call me a cruel master, but I am neither cruel nor your master. I am an architect, and nothing more. It is your calling to make of everything what you will, and there are no shoulders that the weight will rest upon but yours. If, should you choose to bend and reforge those numbers I rattled around a cosmic cup at your inception, be warned.
I have rolled you once, and twice to be sure. Snake eyes, the gambler's curse, and upon you it has laid the easiest trail, and the thickest undergrowth. Your trials, should you stray from my path, shall be torturous and magnificently oppressive.
But the rewards?
Ah... does not Fate favor the bold?
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Written as a sort of thing that I wrote. Also, written for #theWrittenRevolution's prompt: What does it mean to be reinvented? [link]
I thought it would be interesting to write from the perspective of Fate, who sets us in motion, gives us all our choices, and allows us to... well, go nuts, really. Reinvent ourselves. Or not, as it were.
[Preview image by the guy that I found while Googling for glowing dice:
. He's cool.[link] ]
also have some terrible poetry
Once I was one,
Now, I am another
Under a new sun
I shall change yet further
I do but imbibe
the waters of change
that life prescribes
to extend my range
I thought it would be interesting to write from the perspective of Fate, who sets us in motion, gives us all our choices, and allows us to... well, go nuts, really. Reinvent ourselves. Or not, as it were.
[Preview image by the guy that I found while Googling for glowing dice:
. He's cool.[link] ] also have some terrible poetry
Once I was one,
Now, I am another
Under a new sun
I shall change yet further
I do but imbibe
the waters of change
that life prescribes
to extend my range
© 2013 - 2024 Rhetoricism
Comments8
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I like this. You present Fate well. The wording throughout this entire piece is almost formal, but directed at someone. It reads with authority. The narrator is somehow superior (at least in experience) to the person(s) they are addressing. Interesting perspective, very easy to carry out similar to 3rd person (as in, a bunch or epic comparisons and such) as Fate is more of a being or an idea. Not so much a person. I particularly liked the dice bit at the end. The really drove home the whole idea.
The beginning is solid. If you do decide to cut 'why then' that part might fall apart. In my mind, with the cadence I naturally read this sort of piece in, 'why then' is what leads the first sentence into the rest of the paragraph. The whole thing flows quite naturally. Without that bit, the flow could go all wibbly.
The body is very strong. Very quotable, too. "Or will you sit up, take stock, and plunge into the undergrowth with curiosity and determination beating their twin pulses in your veins, icy steel and burning passion intermingling in a perfect dance? It is not what I have written. It will not be easy. But... it is there." Yeah, man. I'm about that life. I particularly like the line "It will never be easy, to fight the preordained". It adds a nice pause, a break from everything to reflect for a moment. It's lovely.
The last two lines. Really awesome, love the question. You're killing yourself with the formatting. They're too close together, and it's distracting. I recommend putting a space between them, or putting "But the rewards?" with the previous paragraph, as it is talking about gambling and the like. I like ending with the question, because in my mind to end with a statement would make it concrete. Or nearly so. You talk about reinvention through the scope of paradoxes and Fate. Ending on a concrete statement is bad. Ending on a vague statement could work, but the question already works so well. That being said, moving "But the rewards?" might change everything. It could be a whole new ballpark that requires a statement. Speculation aside, I love the question. Nice ending.
Overall, a very intriguing piece. I hope there's something helpful in my thought vomit up there. 
Have a nice day. And a happy new year.