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Nothing happened.
"Oh, come on," Rudy said, reaching up and pushing the button again, this time a little harder.
Still nothing. The door refused to open.
The button on the small wire was rigged to open the door, and if the button was pressed the door would slowly roll open. It did not happen immediately, however. It would take a few minutes.
"Great," Rudy said, dropping his eyes and moving over to the chair in the corner. He thought it strange that he was able to make it around the room with no problems now, that he could see where he was going and that he could distinguish the chair, the picture, and the door from the rest of the room. Even as he sat in the chair, he looked up and could see the small white button hanging from a small sliver of wire from the ceiling.
"Weird," he said. "Now what?"
What Rudy did not realize is that he had started from nothing and he could only act and think and talk as much as he was allowed. He was not his own person, he was simply a creation.
"That's a lie!" Rudy screamed, jumping up from the chair. "That is a damned lie!" He looked around the room as if looking for something to use to vent his frustration. Or for something to throw. Of course, he was the only one in the room and there was nothing to throw.
He stopped suddenly, out of breath. Slumping down to the tile, he wrapped his arms around himself.
Rudy is a character, nothing more, nothing less. There was nothing about himself he could have created on his own, that he could have learned on his own. He even fell for the remote control trick.
"Yeah," Rudy said from the floor. "Thanks a lot."
But there was another reason for that.
"What?" Rudy asked, getting up and walking over to the door. He knew the door would open soon, so he went over and stood in front. He thrust he hands into his jeans pockets. "I mean, really," he continued, his eyes fixed on the door in front of him. "What was the big idea behind that?" He laughed suddenly. "In fact, what's the big idea behind the white walls, floor, and everything the same color. There's even a white picture in here! Why?"
The creation of a character is rather simple, and there are two ways to do it.
A low murmur signaled the opening of the door. Rudy watched, fascinated, as the colors flowed into the white room. It was bright outside, but the different colors seeped into the room and Rudy watched as the door rolled up and out of the way. There was now a bright rectangular opening in the wall. Rudy would soon be walking through this door on his way to wherever he was going.
"That's really quite a sight," Rudy said, looking out the opening to the colors that washed the landscape.
There are two ways to create a character. One way is to put everything into him: action, words, thoughts, and of course, motives.
"But that's boring," Rudy said, his eyes lit by the scene outside.
The other way is to just give the character a little push, a little shove in the right direction.
Rudy took one step toward the door.
The basics are created, such as appearance and perhaps a certain outlook. Then the character is unleashed in a surrounding and left to develop himself, to use what he has learned to learn more.
Rudy took another tentative step toward the door. He was now only a few feet from the bright wash of light and color.
"So all of this stuff," he said, nodding his head at the whiteness of the room, his nod including the chair in the corner, the walls, and the ceiling. And, of course, the picture. "All of this was for me to build my own character?"
Rudy took a few more steps and stopped at the threshold of his story. He turned around and looked at the room and noticed the walls were now soaking in colors from the outside. The ceiling and floor were changing into different patterns, and even the picture above the now-blue chair in the corner was flecked with color. He shook his head and laughed softly.
"Thanks," he said, turning back to face outside. He took one more step and was outside of the room and into a story. A story which needed his character at that moment.
The door closed then, softly came to seal itself against the white wall. The room was starkly white again. There was a small white chair in one corner and a large white picture across one wall. The ceiling and tile floor were white again. And a small white button was gently swinging from a thin wire hanging from the ceiling.
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