One.

The problem is I am not sitting here writing this and you are not reading this. I am not real. I am simply a character in someone else's novel. So are you. There is no messianic import to my statements; I wish only to convey the truth as I see it. Whatever you take from this is no consequence to me, for I am simply a messenger of the author, or the Author, if you will. This is no strange, new concept, for we have long considered the idea of Fate to be in the hands of God. I simply profess that my fate lies in the hands of the Author. I give him no attributes such as man has commonly given God, but see him in the light of human error.

Perhaps, the Author is out there somewhere in the night, or the day, writing furiously to keep up with the succession of moments, his or her hand cramping with slivers of pain crawling up their arm. Perhaps, these moments were written half a century ago, the Author long dead to the flesh, nothing more than an idea immortalized in these words. Or else, they are forgotten to Time, but in the thoughts of a scant few readers before falling asleep after a brief hour reading before bed.

These thoughts consume many of my waking hours, but I have just had a revelation of sorts. I suddenly saw the world through the eyes of the Author, tinged with a crystalline precision, an almost absolute form of vision. I was not frightened, but intrigued by what I saw. I saw a man walking down the street. I saw that he was almost transparent; as though I could look through him, look through his life both forwards and back. I knew how he died, how he was born, how he had injured his ankle stumbling drunk off a curb after drinking five beers and two shots of cheap whiskey. I asked myself, in doubt, whether he had not sprained his ankle because of the natural sequence of events one would expect from drinking to excess, or whether or not he had been implied in my thoughts because I had created him.

My sure step wavered and I nearly fell over with the shear weight of realization. I had created this moment. I created this scenario in my head: the alley I was walking down to avoid the curious eyes of the world; the halogen street light half a block away with it's halo of nocturnal angels dancing through the night believing they were revolving around the moon; a silent, spurious breeze passing across my face...