A Flimsy Explanation

I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. “Please continue.”

The so-called god nods and sits down on an invisible chair, legs crossed. He waves a hand and a golden, glowing sphere appears between us. Looking closer, it’s made up of many golden strands, like a big ball of yarn, intertwined, spinning round and round. A few of the strands aren’t golden. They are blue, some red. The god waves at the ball and its spin speeds up. More and more golden threads turn red until the ratio has reversed and there are only a few golden threads remaining.

“This is a representation of the device that shows the fate of a world,” Gui explains. “Gold means a stable, good fortune for the people.”

“Good fortune?”

“No war, no unnecessary deaths, general well-being. It doesn’t mean everything is always good, but the general public, the majority, is content. Red means bad fortune. War, famine, droughts, diseases and so on. As supervisors, our directive is to make sure a world doesn’t tip from gold to red. Once a certain threshold of red is reached, there is no going back and the world is lost, often for a very long time, sometimes completely.”

“So… if you’re gods, why don't you directly remove the people waging war or make it rain when there’s a drought?”

“Ah, you see… That’s not in the spirit of the competition. We look for the god, who can make the most impact with the smallest action.”

“Competition? So this is all a game to you? Playing with peoples’ lives?” Even if this is a dream I can’t let that attitude slide.

“Of course it is,” Gui says.

I try to approach him, but I’m suspended in the frozen water, not moving in any direction, no matter how much I try. Frustrated, I huff noisily—and punch another fish for good measure, which had the misfortune to stop too close to me. Gui shakes his head.

“How else can we find the smallest, least intrusive way to turn the future of a world on a good path, if not through competition? I’ve witnessed futures changing from a global wasteland to a flourishing, peaceful civilization with the redirection of just one river. The best of us can shape fate by changing the colour of one person’s bedroom wallpaper. When working against the entropy of the universe, against the chaos, you can only expend so much energy to push against it, before your actions have worse consequences. It is a competition, yet also a precaution.”

I stare at the spinning ball again. It makes sense. Sense in a weird way. I sigh.

“Then what is your intervention?”

“You.”

“Me?”

Gui waves his hand again and a flying screen appears in front of my eyes. Now that is more like the stories I read… Wait. The stories I… The window shows a web browser, of all things. In it I recognise the red header of my favourite fanfiction archive. Below is the title of…

“That’s—that’s—”

“An absolutely brilliant angle no one has thought of before.”

“No one?”

He shakes his head.

“Then what are you almighty gods for!”

Gui harrumphs and I see him being offended for the first time during our conversation. It feels good to see him flounder, if only for a moment. Some gears in my head start turning as I stare at the screen. So I wrote the solution to the problem in this world. And the story is about… The face of the man above water comes to mind. The incredibly handsome man, who held me before I pushed him away. Red hair and—

“Oh god. Was that Feng Yu??” I shout.

“The Phoenix of the South Sea himself. Well, he hasn’t earned that title just yet, and if all goes right, he never will.”

“Because the war won’t happen.”

“Because the war won’t happen,” Gui confirms. “You catch on quickly. That makes it easier.”

“Could you please take about five steps back? No, I mean figuratively. Come back here. Tell me everything from the beginning. Or wake me up before you start, because I don’t actually want to deal with this.”

Gui uncrosses and then crosses his legs again the other way around. “You still think you’re dreaming?”

“Am I not? To be fair, I always thought this lucid dreaming thing would come with perks… such as being able to control the dream, which isn’t exactly happening right now.”

“That’s because you’re not dreaming.”

“Repeating it doesn’t make it true.”

“Repeatedly denying it doesn’t make it false. But believe what you will. If it doesn’t make you take unnecessary risks, then I don’t care.”

“That’s Feng Yu up there! It has to be a dream!”

Gui sighs deeply and waves with his whole arm. Hundreds of moving pictures, like short snippets from a video, appear around me, hovering in space like a thumbnail collection. I recognise them immediately, having obsessed over that particular drama for months.

“That’s [The Ballad of Falling Snow],” I say, as I watch the main characters fight on one screen and share wine on another.

“Correct. I gave the outline of the story to the author. The story of this world. She was struggling to find recognition and after years and years of trying, ready to make a deal with a demon to succeed. To her good fortune, a god appeared instead and offered her this story.”

“To what… oh. You said I’m the solution. The story ends tragically. The main characters get together, but the city falls apart, leaving them to flee during the worsening war—”

“And from all fanworks created around the frustration about the ending, your so-called ‘Fix-It’ alternate story wraps up everything so nicely, I had to submit it as my suggestion for the competition. I’m a finalist now! And I get to implement my suggestion first!”

“So you exploited a hopeless artist’s desire to succeed?” I ask.

“Clever, right? They get so desperate, they’d accept a contract with a demon to get ahead. Luckily for her, I am a merciful god. There are only upsides to this scheme.”

“Except I didn’t agree. I didn’t sign up for any of this.”

“You did.”

“When?”

Gui waves his hand and a wall of fine print appears. A paragraph is highlighted.

[By submitting your story to this collection, you have automatically accepted the terms of use. We thank you for your cooperation.]

“You should really read the terms and conditions before submitting anything…” Gui says.

“Who reads those?” I pout.

“No one. In no world. That’s why this always works.”

“Always?”

Gui smirks and crosses his arms. “The other gods all try to come up with solutions themselves. This will be the fifth competition I win this way. No one has figured out my tactic yet because they all think their ideas are vastly superior to those of mortals. But I know that mortals, such as you, can have godly ideas!”

It’s hard to stay mad when you’re praised to this extent. I’m trying, though. I’m trying. In front of my eyes, the screens disappear and two people appear. They look slightly different from the drama, but I recognise them right away.