The following is a story. It involves two cities. The first one is called Bongemia and the second is called Fivile. The inhabitants of Bongemia happen to hate the inhabitants of Fivile, and the inhabitants of Fivile happen to hate the inhabitants of Bongemia. Both cities are in the country of Nethrox in Neo-Babylonia. Most people think that Neo-Babylonia is an imaginary place, but they are just fiction-bigots.
The inhabitants of Bongemia and Fivile are very smart indeed. So smart, in fact, that they have deduced through ultralogic that they are characters in a story. They have also deduced that if I don't write this story, they cease to exist. Being the rather sadistic fellow that I am, I have given them a very strong will to live. This bugs them, since it isn't exactly ultralogical. They are also a tad upset about being fictional.
Of course, this is silly. Being fictional is great! If the characters in the following story were real, they would probably be illiterate morons living in caves and trying to figure out things like fire and the wheel. Fortunately, I have sped things up. I can also make them far more interesting than their non-fictional counterparts. For example, I might very well tell you their eyes are the size of basketballs. They aren't though. They resemble normal human beings very closely, except that their spleens are slightly larger. My doing, of course.
Anyhow, on to the story.
* * *
Jezzel yawned that sleepy little yawn she has and stretched her arms a bit.
I don't know why people stretch their arms. As far as I know it doesn't help
blood circulate. It does feel nice though. I bet. She sat up in her bed.
She looked at a portrait across from her bed. It was a picture of someone
named Shirotay, which is what the people of Nethrox call me. The author. Hi.
They don't know my real name, of course, because I don't talk to them. I
suppose if I told them that their theory about being characters in a story was
correct they could be content and live better lives, but hey, they're more
interesting this way.
Jezzel stared at the portrait of this Shirotay bloke. He looks nothing like me, of course. I could send them a picture, but that would give things away I suppose, so forget it. Jezzel rubbed her eyes as she mumbled through her morning prayer. Her parents forced her to pray to me each morning, you see. She was supposed to have her hands at her sides while praying, but she's a rebellious kind of character, so what can they do. She mumbled "Shirouh is my God, he does everything for me, I'll do my best to amuse the goof." Fortunately, for this story, the inhabitants of Nethrox speak English. This is good, because it always annoys me when an author says something like: Carlos said, "Pass the water," in Spanish.
The correct prayer is (according to her parents), "Shirotay is my God and Creator, controlling my fate and guiding my life. I live my life to serve the Creator." If her parents had heard her version of the prayer, they probably would have beaten her fierce and then apologized to me. Of course, I like Jezzel's version better. Particularly the "amuse the goof" part. She does, you know. She is among my favourite characters, because she's a tad unique.
While Jezzel showers, let's check up on her parentals. It's not polite to watch her get undressed.
Mrs. Rendine sipped her tea cautiously. By tea, I mean the mixture of orange pudding and water she called tea. It was actually orange pudding and water. Nethrox is near the pudding fields of Neo-Babylonia, so they eat and drink a lot of pudding. Mr. Rendine sat across the table from her. He was preparing to complain about their daughter, he just had to figure out a reason why he was starting. The real reason why was fairly simple. It was very easy conversation. He simply had to start it, and then he could go into a sort of auto-pilot mode, letting all his usual points come out. And Jezzel did have ample faults.
Mr. Rendine now began. "Is she sleeping in again?" he asked. She wasn't, as we know. He knew too, because he could hear the shower running. So did Mrs. Rendine. As we'll now hear.
"No, I hear the shower going," she said. "I'm surprised she had the energy to get up this morning, staying up til all hours of the night with her punk pals, doing Shirotay knows what..." Etc.
About 4 minutes later, Jezzel was dressed, and she bounded down the steps. Her parentals cringed. They were actually rather bastardly people. Jezzel sat down at the table and began eating various forms of pudding with names of real food.