When he was eleven years old, Roy began writing stories. Using a lined yellow legal pad and pencil, the first story he wrote was about two brothers who fight on opposing sides during the War Between the States. One brother lived with their father in the South, the other with their mother in the North. They meet on a battlefield and recognize one another but are forced to fire their rifles and both brothers are killed. Roy titled this story All in Vain.
The next story Roy wrote he called The Secret of the Universe. It was about a boy who every day sees an old man, a neighbor, going into a little cottage next to his house. One afternoon, as the boy is passing by, he sees that the door to the cottage has been left open. The boy walks over to it and peers inside. Test tubes and vials of chemicals are on a work table, dozens of books are piled around and there is a large blackboard on which are chalked what appear to be mathematical equations or formulas. The old man comes up quietly behind the boy and asks him what he is looking for. The boy is surprised, a little frightened, but curious about what he has seen. He looks at the old man, who has a kind face, and asks him what he does every day in the cottage. The old man smiles and tells the boy that he is a scientist and that he is trying to discover the secret of the origin of the universe before he dies.
Before continuing his story, Roy wanted to know what the secret was. A few years later, when he read about Saul’s conversation with Lazarus after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, Roy thought he might have the answer.
“Tell me, Lazarus,” said Saul, “what was it like? What is the difference between life and death?”
“Other than the light,” replied Lazarus, “there really isn’t much difference.”
In an attempt to erase the evidence of Jesus’s greatest miracle, Saul then stabbed Lazarus to his second and unrescued demise.
The more Roy thought about Lazarus’s report from the other side, the more unlikely it seemed to him that the old man, no matter how dedicated a scientist he was, would succeed in solving the mystery of existence.
Roy never finished the story.