Chapter 1: The Syntax of Reality
The sensation of death was surprisingly editorial. It felt less like a fading of light and more like a strikethrough—a sudden, brutal deletion of a sentence that wasn't finished.
Moments before, Dr. Malcolm Masters, 82, had been sitting in his study in Ohio. He was a man who had dedicated his life to the written word—a Pulitzer in journalism at 36, a Nobel Laureate in poetry at 48, countless award winning books, a griot of the modern age, a man whose novels had defined a generation of Black literature.
But that was a lifetime ago, as an octagenerian he had gracefully bowed out of the literary scene and left it to the young bloods, this was his retirement, a time to lean back and kick up his feet, and in it he had found a guilty pleasure: reading trashy webnovels.
Specifically, The Chronicles of the Anchor.
It was a tragedy of potential. The author, one "Predestined_Papaya" had built a magnificent African-inspired world—Aye—rich with lore about Ase and dragons, only to populate it with wooden dialogue and plot holes so deep you could park a bus in them.
Dr Masters could easily identify the crux of the problem, the author fearfully (lovingly, patiently and purposely) built the world as a platform for his beloved charactors, but as for the plot! It was just a vehicle for his charactors to interact with eachother.
Dr. Masters had been typing a comment, his fingers trembling with righteous indignation: "Young man, you are painting a masterpiece with a mop. You treat these characters like action figures, not people. Where is the Ubuntu? Where is the soul?" He raised high his right hand and brought it down on the enter button like a gavel.
Comment sent! Immediately the author replied: "Since you are sooo 🙄 smart! Why don't you fix the plot."
Then, the stroke hit. The screen went black. Dr. Malcom Masters closed his eyes.
And opened them as Bura Busara when his consciousness returned, his consciousness did not arrive with the beep of a hospital monitor, but with the smell of ozone, old parchment, and... bad pacing.
He expected the pearly gates, or perhaps the ancestors welcoming him home. Instead, he found himself standing on a floor of polished obsidian, cool against bare soles. Above him, massive floating mountains burned with cosmic fire, suspended in a violet sky that felt oppressively close.
Too close, Bura thought, his critic's mind instantly engaging. The description said "high heavens," but the atmospheric perspective here suggests a low ceiling. It creates a sense of claustrophobia, not majesty. Amateur.
He looked down at his hands.
They were not the trembling, spotted hands of the dying octogenarian he had been moments ago. They were firm. The skin was a rich, deep chocolate—the Brunette phenotype—vibrant and smooth. It was a familiarity that brought him peace; he was still a son of the soil, even in this strange place.
But beneath the skin, he felt a hum. A vibration. It wasn't his blood vibrating; it was Ase. It flowed through him like a river of electric ink. He wore a yellow robe of intricate weave, feeling the heavy weight of a Griot's instrument strap across his shoulder.
Memories assaulted him, two streams of consciousness merging into a single river.
Stream A: He was Dr. Masters. The critic. The Elder. The man who knew how stories were supposed to work. Stream B: He was Bura Busara. The Imperial Tutor. A character (flat character) designed solely to deliver exposition to the Emperor and then fade into the background.
"Tutor! The Council waits!"
The voice was shrill, lacking resonance. Bura turned. A guard stood at the heavy cedar doors. The guard was a Silhouette phenotype—crude oil skin, wooly black hair—but his face was disturbingly blurry. Not because of Bura's eyesight, but because the author hadn't bothered to describe him.
"A flat character talking to a background extra," Bura muttered, his voice raspy but melodious, carrying the weight of a seasoned storyteller. "Riveting dialogue."
"What did you say, Tutor?"
"I said," Bura straightened his spine, feeling the snap of joints that were old but revitalized by the Sasa (present) moment. "Lead the way. We musn't keep the plot waiting."
As he walked through the corridors of the Imperial Palace in Akogwa, Bura felt a headache building behind his eyes. It wasn't a biological migraine; it was structural. He looked at the walls. The architecture was a stunning blend of Nubian pyramids and Dravidian temple spires, etched with glowing Tojo. It was beautiful, exactly as he had imagined it while reading.
But as he passed a large open window, the timeline flickered.
Outside, the sun was setting, casting long orange shadows across the courtyard.
Wait, Bura thought, stopping dead. The sun is setting? But in the last chapter I read—which is technically five minutes ago in narrative time—the Emperor was eating breakfast. The author forgot the time of day.
A hiss of steam erupted from the air in front of him. A blue-black, tar-like gooey sludge of sloppy ink began to drip from the empty space in the center of the hallway. It smelled like burning rubber and logical fallacies.
Contrivium.
The sheer laziness of the writing was tearing a hole in the fabric of Aye. The contradiction of time was causing reality to rot.
"Don't touch it!" Bura barked, startling the blurry-faced guard who was about to walk through the puddle.
"It is just... oil, Tutor?" the guard said, his AI-like responses struggling to process the anomaly.
"It is incompetence manifest," Bura growled. He stepped forward.
In his past life, he had used words to move hearts. Now, as a Griot of the Nommo system, his words could move atoms. His Aura, a brilliant, intellectual Yellow, flared around his white dreads like a lion's mane.
He looked at the setting sun, then at the leaking hole in reality. He refused to let this world—this beautiful, black, vibrant world—be destroyed by a sloppy draft.
"The sun did not set," Bura declared. His voice amplified, not by volume, but by authority. He tapped into the Ase of the air around him. "The Great Golden Disk merely dipped behind a passing celestial mountain, casting a premature shadow, before re-emerging into the glory of high noon!"
The reality of Aye shuddered. The air screamed.
In the sky, the sun jerked violently upward, correcting its position. The "evening" light snapped back to the harsh brightness of midday.
The black sludge of Contrivium hissed, bubbled, and evaporated, the plot hole sealed by the forced logic of Bura's narration.
The guard stared at him, his blurry features sharpening for a brief second in sheer terror. "Tutor... how did you...?"
Bura brushed dust from his yellow robes. He could feel the drain on his Ase. He was an old man in a dangerous world, but he was finally holding the pen.
"Simple syntax, my boy," Bura said, stepping over the spot where the reality-rot had been. "Now, take me to the Emperor. I have a few 'constructive criticisms' regarding his administration."
He bounced toward the throneroom like a billy goat, tapping a rhythm on the obsidian floor with his swagger stick. He was going to find the protagonists, and he was going to teach them how to be round characters.
This story had an editor now. And he wasn't going to let it fail.