Short Story Sunday: The Mapmaker of Destiny

I was not aware that I had fallen asleep. It took me a moment to adjust to newness of my surroundings. Someone had moved me into the recovery position, and my cheek was resting on my arm. I heard voices; all at once and then distinctly.

“Stand back. Give her room.”

I looked into a woman’s face, her spectacles showing the dance of a hundred million reflections as she moved.

“Welcome back. We thought we’d lost you there for a bit.”

“What happened?” I said.

“You’ve arrived.”

Four hands simultaneously bundled me into a pashmina and helped me to my feet. My head felt like it had its own gravitational pull.

“Steady now. Nearly there.” The avuncular voice had arms that held me upright and steered me away from the place of my fall. I had no idea where I was or who these people were.

“There’s no need to be afraid. You’re just a bit late.”

“Late for what?” I said.

A wingback covered in lush corduroy materialised. “Wait here. They’ll call you when it’s your turn.”

There was no time to retort: the chair welcomed me into its creases and I drifted off to sleep.

My hand was guided to hold on to something.

“Drink this. You’ll feel better. It always takes new arrivals time to adjust. I remember when I landed. I felt like I had jetlag for a month. You’ll do better though, I can tell. Come on, drink. They’re waiting for you. Been expecting you, actually. There you go. Now hook your arm through mine. That’s it. Stand up... Slowly. There we are.”

I was led to a place that resembled an interrogation room. There was a single light – although that is not quite an accurate description because I don’t believe it was electric – over a desk and two chairs. I found myself on one side of the desk and pulled the pashmina tighter around me.

“You survived the journey, I see.”

It dawned on me that this was an elaborate joke. An extended cosplay designed to frighten me and be a source of hilarity for whoever had set this up.

“Seriously? Gandalf?”

“I am not Gandalf. Though I am familiar with his work.”

What? “Gandalf is a fictitious character, you know. Tolkien made him up.”

“If you say so.” He pulled a large piece of rolled up paper from the inner lining of his robe and threw it into the air, just below the light. The paper – or parchment, to be precise – unrolled and landed on the desk in front of me. He then tossed four paperweights of amber across the surface and waited for them to pause in their respective corners. The parchment was etched with facets, giving it the shape of a polished gem, and each panel was a flurry of activity. I leant forward to examine the one closest to me and noticed that my head did not cast a shadow. I was watching a scene from my thirteenth birthday party. The one where we set up the slippery slide in my parents’ back yard.

“That was a good day. You felt like you belonged in your peer group. Although none of those people feature in your life at the moment, do they?”

“No.” I sat back in the chair and stared at him. “Look, even I know that this kind of thing isn’t Gandalf’s area. And you’re certainly not someone from the Potterverse.”

“Amateurs. Thank you.”

“Perhaps you could explain this?” I gestured at the Marauder’s Map of my life.

“I think I’ll need to speak to Marketing. If you haven’t heard of me, then why do I pay for PR?” He cleared his throat. “I am the Mapmaker of Destiny.”

“Ah,” I said. “Please to meet you. I’m... I suppose you already know who I am.”

“Indeed. I’ve been watching you since you were born.”

This was beginning to feel distinctly Truman Show-esque. “Why?”

“Don’t you remember? We sat here, all those years ago, in this very room, and plotted out your life. Well, parts of it at least. Those blank areas represent what has not yet come to pass.”

“Do they send to a school to learn those high brow phrases that will scare the dickens out of people like me?”

“No, but it does make things a bit more exciting. I’ve been here a long time. Since before time, to be honest.”

“That’s grand. But why am I here? Am I dead?”

“You’re not dead. You asked for this, remember?”

“Sorry MoD, I don’t.”

“I always enjoyed it when you used that nickname for me.” He lowered himself onto the chair opposite me, and I was level with his eyes for the first time. His age was indeterminate, but his eyes had the youthful sparkle of a newborn. It boggled my mind.

“Look,” he said. “You are here.”

“Am I reading a map of a mall or what?” I saw his expression. “Sorry. I’m nervous.”

“This is your present stop along the journey. See? And it was at this point that you had me insert a signpost that would bring you back here for a follow-up consultation.”

“I chose this?”

“Yes. You were nervous about entering your current lifetime. There were so many challenges that you had lined up for yourself that we thought it best that we grant you leave to regroup.”

“We?”

“You, me, the Others.”

“Ah,” I said, not fully understanding. My life, I told everyone, was a kind of crash course. It pushed me through experiences that I thought would break me but didn’t.

“That’s exactly why we called you back.” When he saw my expression, he tapped his temple and said, “We read minds over here.”

“Ah.” It was all I could muster in reply. “By the way, did you try to talk me out of what I was getting myself into? I mean, I could have done without...” I peered at the map. “I could have done without this guy. Oh, god. And that guy... And those bitches. And that boss! And that boss! And my sister – oh my god! What was I thinking?” I planted my palms over my face.

“You knew what you were doing.”

I lowered my palms. I sensed he would say something else if I waited. Instead, he laughed.

“Still getting used to the old mind-reading thing, eh? All right, I’ll humour you. The last time we met, you asked me to give you a destiny that would see the crap get kicked out of you – your words, not mine. You wanted to struggle and to suffer...”

“Why the hell would I want that? It sucks!”

“... so that you could speed up your growth.” I couldn’t tell whether his pause was for effect. “You were three levels away from being an understudy Mapmaker, and you begged me to help you fast-track the process. And here we are. You weren’t sure whether you could survive this lifetime and the labours that you had cross your path, so I made a deal with you that at this point, at this signpost, we’d meet again and either adjust, or continue with, your lifetime.”

If I had known how to wolf whistle, I would have. His expression told me he heard that too. “So, what now,” I said. “Where to from here?”

“That’s up to you. There are an infinite number of options. It’s your choice which direction to take.”

“And you’re telling me I did this because I wanted to be...”

“An understudy Mapmaker, yes.”

“An understudy to whom?”

“Me, of course. You and I go way back.”

“Do you ever make mistakes? I mean, I would hate to be a Mapmaker who gets someone’s destiny wrong.”

“There are no mistakes here,” he said. “Because I am not in control of the journey. You are. The only thing I manage is the start,” he pointed to the panel of my birth, “and the end. The in-between stuff is all you. Of course we talk about it and we have a number of signposts – markers, if you will – related to people you want to meet and experiences you want to have. Those signposts are those odd feelings you get when you are about to make a choice and something tells you to go for it or to avoid it. It’s up to you to listen, or not.”

“This is insane.”

“What is?”

“That I chose all this. That I chose the path that took me through those horrible experiences.”

“You also chose some good experiences, you know. Like this one: the kiss on the platform at Berlin Station five years ago.”

“Hey! That’s private. But yes, it was good.” I chewed my cuticle. “What about dying? Do we choose that too?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

I nodded. I thought about the last news story I remembered reading where a woman my age had been hijacked, raped and strangled two streets away from her home.

“Every choice she made led her to that end,” he said, intruding on my thoughts. “She could have stayed home that night, but didn’t.”

“When you say it like that it sounds like she was asking to die a horrible death.”

“She wasn’t. But her choices lined up with her killer’s choices to go out and do harm. Thus, their paths crossed.”

“It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Those things don’t matter here. Between you and me, she needed to learn important lessons about herself through that experience.”

“And her family? Her friends?”

“Their choices coincided with her death. Nothing is accidental, don’t you see?” He gestured at the parchment. “It’s all here.”

“So why am I here and alive?”

“You’re only halfway. You have more experiences lined up for yourself. Don’t ask what they are. It’ll only ruin things for you. Rather tell me: do you think you can keep going, or should we terminate this journey now?”

I was quiet for a long time, but I knew he was tracking my thought without saying anything. I had survived. Past me didn’t think I could or would – or why else was I here, in limbo, with a man who could show me every detail of my recent past?

“I have missed you,” he said. “You always doubted yourself and then one day you came to me and said, ‘MoD, I want to push myself to the limits’. You were so determined to be unafraid. I admire that about you.”

I snorted. How else does one respond to those kinds of statements? “It didn’t make the experiences any easier.”

“True. But you did discover a depth of resilience that you didn’t know you had. In fact, you have surpassed the goals you set for accelerating your growth. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you. Either you can finish this course of life by taking the easier path or you can continue on this one. It’s up to you.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The easier path will allow you to rest. Things will happen for you in a way that requires little to no effort and you will live out your days in calm and comfort. The other choice will bring you upheaval, adventure, and you will live out your days with relative stability and a whole lot of expecting the unexpected.”

I reflected on my options. “There’s no middle road between the two?”

“There is. There always is. You decide.”

“What did I choose the last time we met?”

“The high road. The challenging road. And that option stands.”

“It feels like a big deal. I mean, it’s only the rest of my life... What would you suggest?”

“It makes no difference to me. Your destiny is set, and whatever path you choose, you will get there.” He smiled. “Don’t tell me: you’ve got a case of FOMO.”

“I didn’t know you kept up with the lingo here.”

“We invented the lingo. There is no missing out, I promise. It’s just a different route to the same destination.”

“Will I be happy?”

“Some of the time. Or, at least until you realise that being happy is a choice. The same goes for sadness.”

I steeled myself. “I don’t know anything other than the road I am on. And if what you said is true – about the journey not really mattering because the destination is the same – then I’ll stick to what I know.”

“Sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“I never doubted you.”

What did that mean?

“It means that you have always done what was right for you, even when presented with short cuts.”

I nodded. “What happens now? Do I wake up in my bed thinking this was all a dream?”

“No. You’ll wake up on your couch thinking you should turn off the TV and go to bed.”

“Why can’t I be allowed to remember this?”

“Because, as any Mapmaker worth their salt will tell you, it’s better if you don’t. People who remember don’t learn as much or derive as much joy from living because they know they chose the experience. This way, you’ll think it’s happening to you and you’ll go along with whatever unfolds.”

“Thanks, MoD.” Everything he said made sense.

“You’re welcome. Now do me a favour and press your forehead against your palm. Yes, just like that.”

I was not aware that I had fallen asleep. It took me a moment to adjust to my surroundings. Someone had moved me into the recovery position, and my cheek was resting on my arm. I heard voices; all at once and then distinctly.

“Hey, love. You fell asleep in front of the TV again.” I heard Dan pick up the remote and silence the voices. “It’s late. Come to bed.”

I looked up at him. Meeting him was one of the best things to happen to me. Having Dan around made me feel that everything would be OK. “I am so glad you’re here.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re sleep drunk. Come to bed.” He kissed my forehead and led me upstairs, into the next chapter of our lives.