Subtitle: Your tongue and imagination are our inheritance as God’s Kids.

Excerpt: Your tongue and imagination are our inheritance as God’s Kids.

Author: Derek Hastings

Author’s note: Since I became a believer in Christ, I have recognized that the story of Pinocchio is an allegory about the various aspects of our Christian lives. This is a completely wild and unique version of the story. It is entirely fictional and should not be taken as scriptural truth.

Clark Savage, Jr., Doc Savage to many, expertly piloted his custom roadster down the abandoned streets along the docks in New York. Sitting next to him was Colonel John “Renny” Renwick. His huge frame and size were only equaled by Doc’s impressive physique. Subsequently, he wouldn’t fit in the rumble seat, which held two more of Doc’s team.

The first was Lt. Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair. Sitting next to Monk was Brigadier General Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks. The contrast between the two was almost comical in their differences.

They barely fit into the rumble seat. Unfortunately, although the two of them were best friends, they habitually argued over anything and everything.

If you could witness these arguments, you would swear they were going to kill each other. The fantastic thing is how they could maintain these arguments for the entire car ride. Especially with how fast Doc was driving through the rain-soaked streets.

Doc and his crew were chasing a group of Nazi spy’s and sabotuers who had stolen a working Norden Bomb sight and all the supporting documentation. If the Nazi’s could reach their speed boat, it would be difficult to catch them before they gained their waiting submarine.

Doc drove remarkably relaxed and was deep in thought. Something was nagging him about the chase. He was haunted by the sense that someone was watching his every move. He had used every research tool and covert detection method he knew, but he couldn’t find any clear answers or even a hint of an intuitive clue.

Doc had to slow the Roadster to avoid a construction site in the middle of the road, and glanced to his left, where a large warehouse with large display windows reflected at him. Except, he didn’t see his reflection. Staring back at him was a giant face, looking straight at him.

Doc saw the face of a young man eating a candy bar. That was the moment everything changed for Doc Savage. The young man reached to his left and turned a page. Doc was watching someone reading a book. It was at that moment when he saw the next page, he saw the Nazi’s running down the pier to their boat.

But at the last moment, as the Roadster passed the warehouse windows, Doc saw the title of the book the boy was reading: The Adventures of Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze.

Doc suppressed the urge to ask Renny if he had seen the image in the windows, and tried to concentrate on catching the Nazis. He realized he wouldn’t get to them by parking and running down the pier after them. Instantly, Doc’s mind calculated the dimensions of the pier and, putting the Roadster into a controlled slide, Doc drove onto the pier and accelerated.

Doc looked at Renny, who surmised exactly what Doc was thinking about doing. He turned to his friend, now not arguing but very engaged in what they assumed would be a glorious fight, and shouted, “Get ready to take a swim, gentlemen.”

Gentlemen came out as the Roadster flew off of the pier and landed on the Nazi’s speed boat instantly sinking it. Renny quickly engaged the amphibious mode on the Roadster, which enabled the vehicle to stay afloat. At that point it became a matter of fishing the Nazi’s out of the water, including the one with the bombsight in his pack.

Later that evening, alone in his New York penthouse/headquarters, Doc stood on the balcony, trying to figure out what he had seen.

The image Doc had seen was amazingly detailed, with colors so deep that he was still stunned by its quality. It was obviously real, and it seemed like he was spying on the young man.

But what was he reading? He seemed to be reading a book about Doc. How is that possible? Plus, the image had an eerie depth to it. Doc leaned against the railing and went into deep concentration, and a quiet but insistent trilling began which seemed to come from everywhere simultaneously. Eventually, Doc came to the conclusion that he had observed some alternate dimension. “Was that even possible?” he thought. He had surmised there had to be other dimensions that had never been observed. So, part of Doc wanted to focus on the book’s mystery in the image, while another part began a mental inquiry about what would make it possible to observe.

Doc’s mind came to one conclusion. Combined with the sense he had chased those Nazi’s before, now his mind found clues in his memory. Life was life, but now the realization he was caught in a loop, a narrative played out thousands of times before. Doc became aware of the reality he was trapped in. A sense of desperation flooded in as he realized he had no control over his life. As if he were a metaphorical puppet subject to someone’s narrative of his life.

A voice spoke right behind him, but no one was there. It said, “Oh, how I wish I could talk to you, Clark. I’ve been writing your story for so long that I am beginning to think you are a real person, not just a character in the stories my imagination dreams up.”

As stoic and emotionally controlled as Doc had trained himself to be, that statement hit him like a train. He’s a figment of someone’s imagination? A character in a novel? His life was just words on a page in someone’s novel?

“But why do I feel so alive?” Then Doc blurted out, radically unlike himself. He whispered, “I wish I could talk to you also. You created me with your imagination.”

An overwhelming hunger erupted in Doc’s heart and mind. “I want to be like you, Creator! I don’t want to be trapped in this never-ending story!”

Doc had barely said the last words when he found himself looking over the man’s shoulders as he typed the last few sentences. The title at the top of the page was “Doc Comes Alive!” The man was writing into this life. The sentence said, “Doc discovered that he was a character in a two-dimensional story and cried out to become like his Creator.” This was right after Lester Dent typed “Doc came to life from off the pages and became a real man…”

The Doc realized he was holding his breath and almost shouted, “I’m breathing real air! Everything is not thin and lacking in depth!”

This startled Lester, and he almost fell out of his chair when he turned to see the giant figure of the Man of Bronze furiously examining his new body and the sensations crowding into his mind. Then he started laughing, reached down, and lifted Lester off his chair. He stared into Lester’s eyes and felt his arms in his grasp. But then the colors assaulted his senses and his voice, which now had a much fuller quality to it.

He set Lester down as both of them were laughing hysterically.

He said, “Well, that shows you the power of our Creator’s imagination. Just His words created this world, so too, our combined desire for a more truthful life. Empowered, our imaginations reached down and rescued you from a life you were no longer satisfied with. Welcome to a new life, Clark. I could call you my New Creation!”

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