The creator

Graham is a scientist determined to prove his theories right. He's rejected by the scientific communtity, and only perseverance can pull him through.

The controller, as he was known by the Earthlings, was playing with his toy solar system. He was very proud of it; it was a state of the art model with self-revolving planets. It came with a control pad and a monitor, for close-up work. The controller loved to fiddle with the various life-forms he'd managed to unlock. There were millions, and he'd already got to level 24, so he'd unlocked most. At the moment, he was testing out a new function, the volcano tool. He created huge, monstrous, growling mountains dribble orange goo down its side.

The creator's favourite planet was Earth. He'd named it after the first thing that he had unlocked. Earth was his favourite planet because he could do the most with it. It was the only one with water, the only one at the right temperature, and, so far, the only one with life on it. To be honest, he felt a bit ripped off, but he was sure that at level 50 he'd unlock something.

On Earth, there were hundreds of life forms, new ones being unlocked each minute. One particular life form was the humans. They weren't well equipped in the athletic section, what with only two legs and no wings. They couldn't even swing through trees. Physically, they were pathetic. Another thing about them was their brain. It was perfectly fine to have a small one, a normal one, or even a slightly large one. The problems only came when they were big enough to start asking (questions). Questions about how they came into existence, where their planet was, and why that was there in the first place. One man, Graham Johnson, was one of them. The only trouble was that his answers were right.

David George was a perfectly normal human being. He followed his father's trade, lived in an apartment, and was married with two children. Nothing interesting had ever happened in his life, and he was just doing everything he was expected to and decided to continue doing so until he died. Let's forget about him, then, and talk about Graham Johnson instead. His father was employed in the science trade. He looked at things and tried to answer questions about other things. His hypothesis was that there was such thing as evolution, one life form changed into another over time, adapting with the environment. Poppycock was what Graham thought. Absolute poppycock. Graham's own theory was widely disputed by the scientific community.

 

Whenever Graham had a conversation with one of his fellow scientists, or even his dad, it went something like this:

“So, how’s your new theory coming on, Graham?”

“It’s going quite well, thank you. And I’ve managed to come up with a way of seeing far into the distance. What you do is you bend glass, and when you look through it, things seem closer up!”

The other person would just nod, mumble a few words, and then walk away. They hadn’t time for people like Graham. People who were clever just didn’t fit in too well.

Graham, however, was still determined to prove his theory right. He’d managed to work most of it out in his head, and he’d almost certainly seen a giant man through his piece of bent glass. Surely the other scientists would believe him if he showed him the sight through the bent glass. But that seemed too scientific. He needed a more exciting way, a way that they wouldn’t say no to, even if they weren’t the slightest bit interested in his work and his theory. But what?

Graham spent the next few days just sitting in his office, figuring this out. Occasionally, some of the kinder scientists came in and checked up on him, but other than that he was on his own. He was writing ideas down and screwing them up and throwing them in the bin. Why was everything so dangerous, preposterous, or downright impossible?! The only thing he’d written that made any sense was to capture something from the world that lay beyond, where the creator lived, and even that was all three of the things. Still, he had to prove them wrong. Otherwise, all of his research would have been wasted.

Finally, Graham decided what he was going to do. After weeks and weeks of sitting in an office banging his head on the table, he’d come up with something. Something great, something mind-blowing, and something that not even Albert Einstein himself could have ever come up with. Graham’s idea was to make a lasso. But not just any lasso, a lasso with a handle 50 miles long! He would simply tie it to a remote controlled helicopter, tie the other end to a tree, and fly it off into the world. He would then slip something into the lasso loop, and take it home as a glorious prize for all his efforts. Graham Johnson would be a hero! His name would go down through history, and many famous people would be named after him, like chat show hosts and comedians. He set off to make his lasso, with the thoughts of victory skipping merrily in his mind.

After months of laborious rope-tying and string making, the lasso was ready. All Graham needed to do now was tie his remote-control helicopter to one end, and the other end to a tree. He did so with enormous care, he double, triple, and quadruple checked each knot and did a quick test run outside. It was ready. His whole life had been leading up to this moment, and, to be honest, Graham didn’t really know how he felt. Sure, he was overwhelmed with joy, but he was also equally overwhelmed with anxiety. What if the rope broke? What if the helicopter ran out of batteries?

Graham cautiously started the engine on the helicopter. He flew it far into the distance, and crossed his fingers.

 The creator was busy watching his mountain that, at first, looked like a cool new lighting element, laying waste to his whole land. A whole continent was wiped off the planet, many lives had been destroyed. ‘Oh, well,’ thought the creator. ‘I’ll just undo my last action. That’ll solve it.’ What the creator didn’t notice, though, was a small rope flying out of the other side of his world, latching onto a pencil, and flying back.

Graham had put a stone on the remote, securing the direction of the helicopter to go right back to him. He was munching hopefully on a ham sandwich, wondering what the lasso would bring back. Then the sun went out. Complete blackness covered the land, and Graham knew that the object on the end of that lasso was big. Very big. After a few hours, a small glimmer of light appeared in the sky. He knew it was coming close now. It was about to land. His hopes and dreams rested on the return of this one item. Quickly he called his fellow scientists, and they stared in awe together at the huge object filling the sky. It was a long cylinder shape, with a point on the end. Closer it came, until they could see what it was. It was a pencil as long as a block of flats is high.

Once the pencil had touched down safely, Graham raced over to it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Neither could the other scientists. Neither could anyone else, not even David George. Slowly, they realised where it had come from. A few scientists walked nervously and cautiously over to Graham. Stumbling over their words, and speaking in a rather hushed tone of voice, they apologised. They apologised for not believing him and his ideas. They started to pat him on the back, and soon a huge crowd was cheering for Graham and his achievements. Graham just stood there, trying to take it all in. He wasn’t used to attention, let alone this much. He didn’t know what to say.

“Umm...” he started, “I, uh, really appreciate you all coming here. I’m really grateful for it. I suppose you’re, uh, wondering where this came from...” Graham told his story and grew more and more confident as he was speaking. Soon, they started sending out messages to the creator, and all was merry. The creator even unlocked a secret achievement for communicating with his planet!