Believe

DOGS and GODS

The window is dimming again, light from outside slowly shutting off. Mrs. Wang sits within, seeing the world fall into darkness. Her fingers touch the glass.

Power.

These hands are too weak to wield it.

What would it feel like to lose control? What will happen if I shake? What will happen if I falter?

Her eyes focus on the tenor saxophone player slowly being cloaked in twilight.

I know how everything exists. I can change it.

She closes her eyes, watching for the words, hoping to make a change. Just a small thing, tenor to alto. Small steps leading to a big outcome.

...If life is a story, then is it real?

Her eyes snap open again, then fall back closed. The tenor saxophone is still just a tenor.

Am I real, if I'm part of the story? Is anything in this world even real, or is it all a lie, hidden in the folds of paper, ready to be read?

Am I just a story in the end?

The questions are filling her mind with doubt. Shaking her head hard, she concentrates. Nothing changes.

"I need to succeed. I can't die."

The man begins to pack up his instrument. Mrs. Wang clutches at her hands, cold and hot at the same time, feeling frustration war with the energy filling her heart. Try harder, try harder.

Her nails dig into her palm, teeth into lip, eyes squeezed shut and heart tight with fear.

The tenor saxophone player stands up and starts walking home.

"What do I have to do to be alive again?" she asks herself, voice soft, cracking into the darkness.

Not like this, not like this, not like this. I don't want to be alive like this.

She backs away from the window, keeping herself from staring. She can't become fixated on it. She can't become fixated on failure. I still have a day. Less. 23 hours.

Her trembling hand finds the light switch and flicks it on. The room illuminates with the soft beams of the overhead lighting, dust swirling lazily in the air under the bulb.

Sitting at her desk, she takes out a piece of paper. Using a thick brush pen, she writes the words "Delusions Of Grandeur."

The D, O, and G stand out starkly, capitalized letters bold against the rest.

On the back of the sheet, she writes DOG.

Courtney said we're like dogs. Mrs. Wang holds the paper in shaking hands, then walks with soft steps to the mirror.

Look at me, I'm pathetic. Samuel doesn't believe m-

She stops. There, in the mirror, an old Chinese lady stands, wearing her clothes and her face and her skin. In her hands is a thin sheet of paper.

On that paper are three letters.

And even though they're sort of twisted about, some of them backwards, she can still make out a word.

GOD.

"A god," she murmurs. "I have the power of a god."

The words sink into the silence.

"I have the power of a god," she says again. "I can do this. I'll save myself, I can rewrite it. I'll rewrite everything. I have a day, this isn't impossible. Not for me. Not for me."

Nothing's impossible for me.