A voice emerged that broke his thought process and woke him from the dark state he was plunged into.
"..."
「Her…!」
On his desk was an old radio pulsating with life.
It was then that he remembered that he was awaiting a broadcast about a talk show. Normally, it would be broadcasted on television or the internet, but both of these things were far out of reach in this house. It was only by God’s will that Zachary was able to get a chance on listening to the show through the radio. He wasn’t a big fan of them but this was one he awaited with eagerness.
Even after the thoughts he had, he brushed them away and moved forward. He could not strive for those colored days without a bit of positivity.
Grabbing the radio closer to his ear, he could hear the round of applause accompanied by occasional whistles and cheers from devoted fans griddling the sound of the broadcast. It was clear how beloved and popular this show was. The host constantly thanked the audience for the gracious welcoming ovation as they all died down after half a minute — the hype was real.
But Zachary could care less about all that, he wanted to skip the introductions and get right into the meat of the topic. That was how desperate he was.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome with me the beloved author of the hit series “Serena’s Wonderland,” and the novel releasing this fall “Stage-Set,” Hye-mi Myung.”
The broadcast changed its music for this would be the part where they would show the guest sitting beside the host, with another round of applause going on in the background.
He listened with great interest as the host shut his mouth and the woman began to talk for herself, expressing her thoughts about her inspirations, the world she sought to create, and the hardships she went through.
She was quite the star among young adults. Her stories weren’t the type to appease young adults or teenagers (the teen romance with an ounce of fantasy that dominates that genre), yet they still managed to captivate a lot. That could be due to Myung, herself, being barely even thirty, so she understood what worked for her target audience as she was technically still part of them.
If all the world fell silent, Zachary would still listen to that woman.
That woman was just what he needed at a time like this, she was a true author of modern literature, the thing he had a knack for the most. She was just an average woman, nothing special about her at all, yet she had all that success. So even as Zachary’s mind urged him to pursue his dreams to become like her one day, it pushed him back with thoughts about waiting to hear of her death like every other person he admired in a couple of years or so.
That was just how his mind was: an epitome of opposing conflicts.
“What do you think is your best work yet?” The host presented his question, “Or what novel are you most proud of?”
Zachary waited for an answer, like everyone else.
“I think… probably “And Thus, They Struck.” It was definitely the most challenging one yet and one that I’m very proud of finishing.” She answered. “There was one specific chapter that I struggled with and that’s Chapter Fourteen, as you all might know if you’ve read the book. For some reason, I spent weeks stuck at that chapter, it was very frustrating to me — I almost scrapped the book altogether because of it and I’m glad I didn’t. But as it turns out, all I had to do was step away and let my imagination do all the work, because one day I woke up with the entire scene fresh in my mind from my dream. It was unbelievable. Dreams are the stem of all imagination… and that’s kinda what urged me to write “Stage-Set” after this book.”
「Dreams, huh.」
The very thing he believed to not be true was supposed to be the key that could potentially pull him out of this misery. It was the key to throwing away the blockade that made his current goal unattainable. That was the solution he needed to come to terms with.
After the broadcast was over, he put the radio aside, gripped onto his pencil with all his might, and carefully dusted off the paper on the desk to make sure it was perfectly clean.
A white canvas for his art, for his world.
「What am I even doing?」
But his world did not grasp the elucidations of the real world. It was more so a satire of much deeper themes and fantasies, at least he strived to make it so.
“Shouldn’t this be the time the protagonist gains an epiphany?” He questioned himself, slightly stepping away from the desk, contemplating much thought and watching the raindrops blistering onto the window. “Ha… Who am I kidding? The world is not a piece of fiction I can simply fiddle with. Protagonist this, protagonist that… a role like that wouldn’t work for me.”
It wasn’t a mindset that every person was the protagonist of their own story and that he simply wasn’t. No, far from it. He had an entirely different belief. Simply put: he did not care. Reality did not have the need for something so trivial and meaningless. The world moved whether one was acknowledged or not.
There are no protagonists in this world. Only creators.
And that was why he aimed to be one. An imagination so steep in the mind and imbued with vivid fantasies paved a great path for a creator. He wanted to follow it, he needed to follow it, otherwise, the other path set for him was to be eternally forced upon him.
“If only…”
Resting his head on the desk, he could hear and feel the droplets of rain reverberating in his ears as if something was bickering from below.
「I can just drift away.」
That was his call for a fantasy. His ambition reaching a stalemate, he simply wanted to dream; dream of the world that lied within his mind. Many times he brought his imagination forth in the form of words on paper but never was he actually able to fully realize it, even within a dream. But now… he longed for it the most, the salvation of divine manner.
It was then that he sought out to follow Myung’s steps in his own way. He raised his head back up and grabbed a book of the same name mentioned in the broadcast — he was glad to have bought it before as he did not have all her works at that time — and opened it up to the chapter she mentioned.
Maybe within it, he could find the key he needed.
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