My Aristotelian Tragic Hero - Josh Ferguson

This is my attempt at creating a tragic hero using what is discussed in Aristotle's Poetics. Hope you enjoy!

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“W-what?” Jude said.

“I didn’t want to believe it at first either,” his mother said. “But as you grew older, the signs became clear. I knew it would be your fate, no matter what”.

“No this is some sort of joke, right? There’s no way tha-”

“I’m sorry”.

Jude felt the air wrap around him like a tight vacuum, wrapping tighter and tighter with every thought. The visions in his dreams, the memories that did not belong to him. The cloaked gods that haunt him every full moon.

In his dreams, he would find himself on top of a cliff, peering over the edge and into the oblivion below, clutching onto the cliff’s gravel edges. Among the dark shadows, a hooded man dressed in tattered robes would reveal himself and echo the same words every time.

‘Tragedy shall befall you, for it has been foretold’.

“Oh my god,” he said.

“Do you realise now?”

“Yes”.

He wished it not to be true, but he now knew it to be so.

To martyr himself was his destiny.

Suddenly, he ran upstairs and into his bedroom, hastily locking the door behind him. A few seconds later, his mother came knocking.

“Jude, what are you doing?”

“I’m not unlocking that door. Never”.

“What?”

“Nothing bad can happen this way, to me or to anyone”.

“Jude don’t do this! Please!”

“I don’t have a choice!”

His mother kept on banging against the door as Jude sat on the bed, knees tucked into his chest, hoping that the world would just disappear around him.

Hours passed. Jude remained in his place, his mother now resting against the locked door, gently knocking every now and then. He closed his eyes only briefly, but when he opened them the hooded man from his dreams stood before him. He let out a small scream, which clearly startled his mother as she was now hammering on the door with sheer ferocity, pound after pound after pound. Trying to retreat he fell off the bed, knocking over a large book and dozens of pens from his desk onto the floor, and backed himself into the corner of the room and the man now stood lurking over him.

“What do you want?!” Jude cried.

The man removed his hood, revealing a head of mud brown hair and eyes so dark they appeared like holes.

“There’s no escaping your destiny, Jude” the man said. “Whatever you do, I will lead you to your downfall”.

“Why me? Why not anyone else?”

“JUDE!” his mother howled.

The man remained unfazed. “You were the character I chose to write about. It’s as simple as that”.

Jude scrunched his forehead.

“What? What do you mean write about?”

The man replied with a smirk.

“What do you want from me?!”

“I have a story to tell, Jude. And it will finish the way I intend it to”.

Jude looked out of the corner of his eye, where he saw the book and the pens which fell from his desk. Ideas started whirring, but he needed to act fast.

He quickly reached for the book and threw it towards the man’s face and knocked him back slightly and Jude grabbed a pen and leapt up to his feet and aimed the pen towards his exposed neck and penetrated through his pale skin causing blood to spurt out onto the floor. The man didn’t seem all too shocked by this. He pulled the pen out of his neck with a sharp tug, causing more blood to spew out, and gave Jude that same stupid smirk he gave him earlier. Then, he began to wheeze with laughter.

“You think that was smart, huh?” the man said. “You think that would resolve everything?”

He laughed even harder, wearing a smile made of maroon teeth.

“I created you. I created everything and everyone. Without me, your world wouldn’t exist. Your past, present, and future is all down to me! No matter what happened, I knew story had to end in tragedy”

The man stepped closer.

“Do you even know who I am?"

Jude remained silent.

"Do you know who you are?"

Still silence.

"I am Josh Ferguson, your maker. You are my tragic hero”.

Hearing those short raspy words, Jude had realised what he had just done.

‘Tragedy shall befall you, for it has been foretold’.

“And with my death, your story ends here”.