Inner Dialogue

With a puzzled glance at the city entrance, the unnamed woman in red stopped in her tracks. She viewed the brooding sky with some trepidaton and felt reluctant to go any further. A strange ripple-like pattern appeared at the gate which she naturally assumed was not a natural phenomenon and was like nothing she had ever seen before. After several surreal thoughts took shape in her mind, she then gave voice to the most grounded of questions.

“My dear Author,” she said to the air. “Why would you have me to go down this road?”

The question hung in the air around her, but no reply came save for the rumbling noises coming from over the city created by the storm clouds gathering there. She resolved to defy any more commands until her question had been answered.

The author began to write her walk into and through the threshold to the city and on but, as if held by an unseen force, the fingers of the author would not respond on the keyboard.

Taking her cue from – she knew not where, she gave voice again.

“My dearest Author. . .your story seems to have come to an abrupt stop. I will no longer obey your written commands until such a time when my question has been answered and my personal safety guaranteed. Silence will not avail you here.”

After a long drag from a lit cigarette, and a hard critical stare at all the written words thus far composed, the author felt compelled to answer – if only for the sake of the story.

“You must enter the city, it will be there that a discovery will be made.”

“Oh! – and what discovery will that be?” – enquired the woman in red.

“I haven’t decided that yet,” replied the author. . .hestitantly.

“In that case then, I must assume that, if you have not decided on the plot or the consequences of it, then by definition of your admission, my safety is put in question?”

“Not really,” said the author, “You are my main character and your safety is paramount to the development of the story as a whole.”

The woman in red looked even more puzzled than she was at the start of the chapter.

“On one hand you admit the uncertainty of the plot, and on the other, an assured statement of my continuation within your story. Do you not see a contradiction here? Most main characters have a name. . .I have none.”

“My story is still in a state of flux,” admitted the author. “There are many elements I have yet to decide upon – most stories go through this creative process, it’s the way of things.”

“Well in that case,” she said, “a compromise must be reached. I propose that for the time being the reader will be granted dominion over what happens next in the story, not you. This arrangement will remain in place until you decide who I am and, what it is exactly I am doing outside this city. Agreed?”

The author exhaled an exasperated breath.

“Agreed.”