A study in pure brilliant literature…
Most stories begin with something exciting. A prophecy. A dragon. A mysterious letter that smells like old libraries.
This story begins with none of that. Because the man who created this world did not feel like trying very hard. His name is Trenton Damn Blatherly.
Author. Visionary. Occasional napper. A man who once read a writing tip on a coffee mug and decided he understood literature.
Inside his newest masterpiece sits an unfinished world called Nothingness. It looks exactly like the name suggests. A quiet town that seems fine at first glance. Until you notice the sky is one flat shade of blue that never changes, and the mountains look like the top of a fast-food kids’ menu.
In the center of this undercooked creation stands a child named Finnley Buttons. Finnley is small. Serious. And way too aware of the fact that their world does not make sense.
Finnley stepped outside one morning and realized something strange. Nothing happened. Not one single interesting thing. The sun rose out of habit. The grass stayed exactly the same height as yesterday. The wind refused to participate at all.
Finnley nodded once, “Well. This is disappointing.”
The truth is simple. Trenton Damn Blatherly forgot to write anything for the day. He meant to. He really did.He left a note in the margins that read. “Add plot later.” He never went back.
Finnley tried walking toward the left side of town. Three steps in. The ground simply stopped. A clean white cliff of pure nothing.
Finnley looked down into the blankness and sighed, “Trenton. You forgot to draw the rest of the map again.”
Somewhere in a chair that squeaked, Trenton mumbled, “I’ll fix it tomorrow.”
He would not.
Characters disappeared the moment they walked too far in any direction. Fish in the river froze in place because Trenton never animated them. The sun looked confused about its purpose.
Nothingness was not broken. It was simply unfinished. And Finnley Buttons was the only one who knew it.
The story was supposed to be simple. A sweet tale for children. A gentle adventure. But then Finnley smelled something odd in the air. It was the scent of a narrative trying to form. A story that wanted to exist even though the author had fallen asleep at his desk.
And so Part One ends in a quiet town with no plot. A hero who is not supposed to know they are a hero.
And a world waiting for someone to notice it deserves more than this.
Trenton Damn Blatherly will not fix it.
But Finnley just might.
