"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not have lived in vain."
-Emily Dickinson

The way I've heard it, most authors start their books from an idea, something that inspires them, a concept. But the way I began this wasn't quite what even I expected it to be.
My name is Dr. William Douglas Gaster. When I was five, I used a microscope to analyze that the particles floating around in my family's yard may have belonged to my grandfather. When I was in high school, in terms of scientific merit, I was compared to some of the former Royal Scientists, and while I was in college working towards my doctorate that led to that shiny addition before "William", that became an expectation.
But I'm not a writer.
I've been involved in countless scientific demonstrations, transformed one compound into another using a form of reaction that even the Underground's college fails to cover, and have been to an award ceremony once every month.
But I'm not a writer.
If I were a writer… well, I'd be in a very different place. I wouldn't be in nearly as many scholarships. I'd probably spend much more time wondering about how general the world is instead of how specific it is.
More than anything, I probably wouldn't have enough money to settle down, and not nearly enough money to take the name of "Dad".
Papyrus, my younger son, my only son, came to me a few days after Christmas, bored from school, noticing I was even more bored. That was more to do with the holidays being over and all, but my son thinks a different way. A way that doesn't buy grades for him in school, but gives him a different kind of intelligence. I appreciate that.
He poured a hot cup of coffee for me, black with two creams like he'd memorized from the very first time he was allowed to use the coffee machine, and the conversation afterwards looked something like this:
"Hey, Dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"You ever think of writing a book?"
A few chuckles. "And why would I do that? I'm a scientist."
"But Dad, why don't you write about… what happened?"
What happened. What happened.
I coughed on the coffee a little, and it burned down my throat like an unforgiving chemical burn as it went down. Coffee splattered all over my work clothes.
Papyrus, of course, went all arms-flying, asked me if I was alright. And after a lot of fuss and chaos involving a few forceful tries of the Heimlich maneuver and an eventual glass of water, I said I was fine and that I just needed to change my shirt. He nodded his head and said it was fine, and I ran up to my bedroom.
I ran towards the mirror, trying to compose myself. What happened. What happened. What happened.
Was I ready? Could I put this down into words? How could I ever? I knew I couldn't. God, I was a mess. My eyes were swimming, I was shaking, I couldn't think straight, which I never, ever, wanted to do…
I saw something.
It was in the corner of the house, and it was a coffee mug, all misshapen after being shattered and put back together, almost shattered once again. I thought I threw it away years ago, but here it was, gathering dust in the corner. I picked it up, and the dust came in sluffs off of the coffee mug, and my eyes began stinging as if that chemical burn had spread it to my eyes. He'd given this to me. He'd given this to me.
This story punched me in the same way the mug did. It was sitting in the corner, just waiting to be talked about, written about. It was gathering dust, stinging my eyes with tears, and just as he'd given that coffee mug to me, he'd given that story to me. He'd given so many lessons to me, lessons that would make me much worse of a scientist, much worse of a father, much worse of a man if he hadn't told it to me. He'd given me lessons that brought me out of my room and into the world, out of my tears and further into the world.
And in the beginning, I supposed I paid him back. I'd told it to a few- no- dozens of people, each web unfurling with every section. What if I were to suffer a heart attack and were to collapse on the floor, and the story were to die with me? They'd all be sorely disappointed. I couldn't do that. Not to him, not to them, not to anyone on the world.
I was ready.
Or at least as ready as I'll ever be.