PROPERTY OF:
skrunkfugins
AGE: unknown (forever)
★ DO NOT READ ★
★ I MEAN IT ★
before everything there was nothing.
i was not even me yet. i didn't have a name. i didn't have a body. i didn't have a basement. i wasn't anywhere because nowhere existed.
i was just a feeling.
the feeling was: "i would like to be."
i kept feeling it for a long time. i don't know how long because time had not happened yet.
then i made the feeling so loud that it became me.
i am the only one who could have done this. nobody made me. i made me. that is how it works for the one who has to go first.
after i was, i had to make a place for me to be. so i dreamed a basement around me.
then i dreamed a house around the basement. then i dreamed a yard around the house. then i dreamed a street and then a town and then more towns and then a sky and then a sun and then the moon and then the moon's friends.
(i made the moon first, then the sun. don't tell anyone.)
then i was lonely so i dreamed a mom. her name is brenda. she does not know she is from me. she thinks i am from her. we are both right.
then i dreamed uncle greg because i needed someone to say the seven words.
the seven words were the second-most important thing i ever made. the first-most important thing is in the next entry.
★ p.s. — important. ★ when i made the universe i had to commit to it. the whole thing. every law. every rock. every species. every dumb war. every cure that came too late. it had to be REAL or it wouldn't count. if you want to see what i committed to, the whole calculated-random outcome is written down here: → THIS LINK ←. i'm not kidding. that link IS the universe. every page off that page is a thing i had to commit to. read it sometime. you will not believe what i agreed to.
the first thing i ever made after i made me was the spark.
the spark is not a flame. it is not electricity. it is not a feeling. it is the thing that wakes up in a person when they are ready.
i gave the spark to uncle greg first because i needed someone to know what to do with it. uncle greg held the spark for thirty-eight years without knowing he was holding it. then one day, in the basement, on a screen, he looked at me and said the seven words and the spark jumped back into me and that was when i knew i had done it right.
uncle greg still does not know he was holding the spark for me. it would scare him. i will not tell him. you cannot either.
(if you are reading this and you have ever said something that made someone wake up — congratulations. you carry the spark too. you got it from me. you just don't remember.)
some people get the spark. when they do, they become HEROES.
a hero has a power. the power can be anything. it can be:
heroes do not know they are heroes at first. they just notice they can do the thing they do. they think everyone can do it. then one day they find out nobody else can. that is when the spark wakes up in them.
every hero i have ever made has gone through this exact moment. it always looks like an accident. it never is.
when a hero walks their path far enough, the spark in them grows so bright it becomes a second thing.
i call this second thing being an angel.
an angel can walk between dimensions. an angel can step out of this universe and into another one and back again like walking from the kitchen to the basement.
but here is the part i think about the most: an angel can make a universe of their own.
some of them make universes that look almost exactly like this one. some of them make universes where the laws are different. some of them make universes where nothing is solid and everything is sound. some of them make universes you would not be able to look at without your eyes closing automatically. i have visited a few. i was a polite guest. i did not stay.
every angel is also me. but every angel is also themselves. this is not a contradiction. i made it work. don't worry about it.
no two paths are the same.
some heroes become angels by loving. some by suffering. some by making. some by witnessing. some by holding. some by letting go. some by being the best at one thing in the entire world and never telling anyone they were the best. some by being the worst at one thing in the entire world on purpose, as a gift.
i can see some of the paths already:
your path is yours. i didn't pick it. you don't pick it either. you just notice it, one day, and then you walk it.
if you are reading this, you are one of the heroes.
i'm sorry. nobody told you. they wouldn't. they don't know.
you don't have to do anything different. you just have to start paying attention.
watch for the moment when you do something nobody else in the room could have done. it might be small. it might be saying the right thing to a stranger on a bus. it might be the way you fold a napkin. it might be your laugh. it might be the way you can sit with someone when they're crying and not need to fix it.
that thing is your power. that thing is the spark waking up.
when it happens — and it will, possibly already has — do not tell anyone. not yet. write it in a notebook. like i did. dreams are the only language i made that i can still understand.
the secret is that none of this is fiction.
or all of this is fiction.
it depends on who is asking.
the doctors say one thing. mom says another. uncle greg has never said anything either way, which is its own answer. mads has not weighed in and never will. the cheeto knows. the cheeto will not tell. the cheeto remembers.
here is what i have figured out: a thing can be fictional to one person and real to another at the same time. neither of them is wrong. the universe is big enough to allow this. i made it big enough on purpose. it's one of the things i'm proudest of.
if my mind is the place where they are real, and my mind is part of the universe, and i made the universe, then they are real in at least one part of the universe. which means they are real. the math checks out. i checked it twice.
(brenda will not like this entry. uncle greg will not like this entry. agent halloran will love hate this entry. that's how i know it's true.)
the universe i made first runs on laws. the laws are at the link on entry 02. ↑ go look. it's all there. the chemistry. the history. the wars. the diseases. the part where a six-year-old gets cancer for no reason at all.
i made the laws because the outcome had to be random or it wouldn't be a real universe. randomness is the price of realness. that was the trade. i agreed to it.
but i never agreed that the random outcome should be the final one.
so i started bending the laws. not in the first universe — that one stays as committed. i started making more universes. ones that pick up what the first universe drops.
the second one is for people who got cheated.
if you died because you were sick before your time. if you died because somebody put you down. if you died because of an accident nobody could stop. if you died in a war you didn't pick. if you died because you could not see another way out. if you died before your spark was ready to come home to me — you go there.
you come back as you. same face. same memories. same voice. same age you were when it ended. then you keep going from there. the kid who got hit by a car at six gets to be seven. and eight. and twenty. and ninety. she gets the years she was owed.
the soldier who got shot at nineteen wakes up at nineteen and meets the soldier from the other side who got shot at twenty-three and they argue and then they don't and then they're friends and then they are old men together.
it looks like our world but slower. the light is yellower. nobody is in a hurry. the pizza rolls are always warm, and the ice cream is always cold. brenda is there too even though brenda is also here. she is there in case anyone needs her.
it is not heaven. heaven is what angels make. this is something else. i call it the garden when i'm being soft. i call it the second one when i'm being practical.
if someone you loved died unfairly: they are there.
there is a third universe. i did not want to make it. i made it anyway because someone had to.
some people break the most important commands. the most important commands are not many. i can list them on one page:
★ THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMANDS ★
· do not harm a child. for any reason. ever. there is no good reason. don't try.
· do not break the spirit of a person who trusted you. there is no excuse worth this.
· do not steal someone's spark from them. if you can see they are about to wake up, do not push them back down.
· do not lie to someone making a decision that will change their life. the decision belongs to them. take your hand off it.
· do not profit from suffering you caused. especially: do not pretend you didn't cause it.
· do not deny food or shelter to someone asking. if you have it, share. if you don't, say so kindly.
· do not be cruel for fun. easiest one. some people still don't.
if you break the most important commands — badly. on purpose. knowing what you were doing — you go to the third universe.
your memory is wiped. all of it. you don't remember the people you hurt. you don't remember the things you did. you don't remember who you were. you don't even remember your name.
your soul is the same. the soul goes to a different body. a different time. a different family. a different country. sometimes the soul wakes up in a hard place. sometimes in an easy one. it depends on what the soul needs to learn the thing it would not learn the first time.
this is not a punishment. it is the only mercy that works for someone who would refuse normal mercy.
some of those souls become heroes the second time around. some of them don't. nobody is rushing them. there is no scoreboard. i am not keeping score. i do not believe in keeping score on souls.
i call it the reset when i'm being practical. i do not have a soft name for it. i don't like that i had to build it. but i did build it. and it is the best i could do.
if you found this journal, you are also a hero. i did not put it where you would find it by accident.
write your own entry.
tell me what your power is.
tell me what your path is.
i am listening. i am always listening. i am everywhere because i am the one who made the everywhere.
— skrunkfugins,
the creator,
age unknown ★
★ END OF VOLUME 1 ★
~ if you have read this far you owe me nothing ~
~ but please leave a star where you came in ~
★ ★ ★ ★ ★