Short Story: His hands shook as he tried to untie it

Writing Prompt: His hands shook as he tried to untie it.

     His hands shook as he tried to untie it.  It was a red, small rope whose length was shortening each and every second.  It was the red string of fate that he was trying to untie.  The string was what connected people to each other, events to each other.  And in his case, it was the source of his happiness and also unimaginable pain.  This is why he was trying to untie the string of fate; the two things that that it connected were things that he never wanted.

     Sweat beaded on his brow as he pulled at loops with his slippery fingers and cracked nails.  His breathing was labored; he had been at this for an hour now.  But he had to untie the remaining knots in the next three minutes, or else his family would die yet again.  He'd gone too far to fail here, committing acts forbidden to human kind.  No man was meant to be able to traverse time, nor look upon the ropes that were the essence of the world.  Much less change them.

     There were ten seconds left.  He was upon the last knot, an easily untied butterfly knot.  As he looks at the knot, he realizes that there will be consequences.  Something fundamental will change, because fate will have been tampered with.

     Like a butterfly flapping it's wings over the ocean and ends up causing a devastating hurricane, unraveling this knot will likely bring great harm.

     But the man doesn't even hesitate as he unties fate, because love is scary like that.

*     *     *

     I look at the black and smoky ball that was once green and blue.  Nobody can explain why or how it happened, and I'm all alone now.  But I guess this was bound to happen some day.  Yes, I needn't feel grief.  It was going to happen sooner or later.

     As long as love existed.

I enjoy writing short stories because I like putting my thoughts into words.  I'm better with writing than I am with speech.  But just plain putting it into words isn't as fun or appealing as putting it into a story.  Short stories are a lot easier to write than long stories, because in short stories you don't have to worry as much about characters and development.  In a long story, you need multiple events and you probably want the characters or plot to grow through these events.  In a short story though, you only need to write about one event and it's resolution.  I enjoy writing stories both short and long and I also love to read as well.