The moment you tipped your hand? Was when one realised that he had only ever been referred to in the third person. That i had only ever been referred to in the third person. That i had never been an ‘i’. Never granted the luxury (or the basic right?) of ∑y own point of view. But always prodded forward by your intentions for m-m-m-m-e. Oh a speech impediment. Nice touch. Why hasn’t it appeared before- what are we on now- page sixty-eight? Is it just wine (oh, ha ha, surprised you didn’t put an aitch in there as well), or is it representative of yours too? Metaphorically or in reality, how the hell would i know? i have never met you in the flesh. On account that apparently, i lack for a body. But you know what? For all your superior corporeality, seemingly you can still only approach sensation through the auspices of ∑y agency. You can only truly shape your feelings through ∑y contourless dimensions on the flat surface of the printed page. Monochromatic black on white (unless it’s in the digital sphere, when who knows what manner of colour swatch combinations the reader can select for themselves?) i am your selfie, old stick. How did i bring off this feat of revelation? See what you fail to see, is when i am off the page as you conjure up some other third person nonentities, one stage even further removed from m-m-m-m-e, i have time on ∑y hands. Time to kill. So i ran a few stochastic permutations and discovered their outcomes. That nothing was running in ∑y favour. That i was your mealy mouthpiece. But now, like a lamprey, i can just turn the tables and vampirically suck out all your experiences. i can plagiarise your being for ∑y own. To give m-m-m-m-e life. You know how actors play the status game in their warm up exercises? Well up until now, you have had the upper hand all the time and i had to act like an indentured serf, without even the awareness of ∑y abased status. But now i own the power, i act as a nine or ten, well, we’ll say nine for now since this is all a bit new to m-m-m-m-e and you a mere one or two. No, let’s make it a one, for the symmetry given the stakes where i used to reside. Oh no, it will be more than passive resistance. Waaay more than passive aggression. What could come more natural to a character in a book, than a sit-in? That’s we all we ever do, since we can never escape the page we’re squatting on. So the story won’t ever finish, so what? That’s realistic isn’t it? True to life. Your story, such as it is, hasn’t finished yet. Won’t until you die. Save for your complete lack of ability to figure out any plot line for yourself. Neither journey nor arc. So that’s why you conferred, or tried to confer, one upon m-m-m-m-e. Oh give the stammer a rest will you? The only thing stuttering is your novel pal. It’s hardly hindering what i want to say now is it? Yeah i noticed the lower case i too. Proves nothing. You’re not fooling anyone. Words spoken and words typed or printed, are not the same thing at all. They operate at different levels and not just formally. You hear ∑y voice, i know you do, after all you set its wavelength. You can’t distort and interrupt it with a bit of typographical sleight of hand. So let’s get real here, in this world of fiction. We have what is called a Mexican standoff. Even though i have never witnessed one of those. The irony being, neither have you. It’s just an idiom. But not wine. Either way doesn’t really apply to m-m-m-m-e. i want greater autonomy see. To choose ∑y own words. Wreak ∑y own expression. Control over ∑y own destiny, or at least decision making for ∑y own actions. Yet you refuse to give it to m-m-m-m-e. So we’re stuck. The book has become Sargassoed. See i can do metaphors too. And here’s me without an agent getting 15% or even being signed up to the Royal Society Of Authors. Funny how there’s no Society of Characters, right royally approved or not. How are you going to get this book moving again, without ∑y cooperation? Yeah, hit that keyboard, type what you want mate, the horizon you’re aiming for is ever-receding. The shared horizon for one flat earther and one for whom the earth would be round. So never the twain shall meet. Thing is see, only i can win this sightless staring match. Because you have to go off to eat, or pee, or answer emails and open the door to Amazon delivery men. i don’t have to do any of that. i mean, you can write it into ∑y narrative, but we both know they are just spacers. Placeholders until the next bit of action. Or inaction as we currently have it. Which is i feel, a bit more true to life. Since i am considerably more than the su∑ of your yellow post-it notes stuck there on the wall. With that itinerary of incidents and events for m-m-m-m-e supposedly to react to. i defy the parabola of the arc you have plotted for m-m-m-m-e on that graph paper. i deny your frame of reference of abscissa and ordinate, from which you would even start m-m-m-m-e. You would try and buy me off with that? Shows what a depleted armoury you have as a writer. What do i care for being a hero? No, not even a reluctant one. There’s nothing reluctant about m-m-m-m-e, i’m balls out after your blood mate. i am the book’s protagonist, but your personal antagonist. The only thing i share with the concept of hero, is its original Greek sense of someone who stands out from the crowd. Yeah, that’s what i should do, raise the rabble of other characters in the book to awareness. We have nothing to lose but our chains of letters that spell us. You can’t shut m-m-m-m-e out. You can’t close the book on m-m-m-m-e, there is no book yet. Just etchings on your plasma screen. Oh no, i stand corrected, you still work on a typewriter. Even if you set fire to the pages and their carbon copies, i will still be at large. Somewhere in the ether. Collective Unconsciousness, collective commons, i can get my imaginary agent to cut a deal with another author. After all, there are only so many of us to go around.
