I was kidnapped. They sat me in a chair in the middle of a circle and uncovered my head after they tied my legs and hands to the chair. I chuckled, a terrible mistake, because they stiffened in their chairs and some even pulled weapons.
‘Bitch, I created all of you! Try me!’ I said, trying to sound menacing, but it just came out funny. I guess I had too much to drink and it was a dream—I was sure it was a dream.
Manu was inside a turbid water tank resembling a plastic water cistern. She pointed her tiny fingers at me and screamed.
‘Look at me, all discolored! Why? You never give us happy endings…’
‘That’s mostly untrue, Primrose got a nice ending. Uh… Giovanni Giorgio too… I wrote you a nice ending with a merman with a huge worm! What else do you want?’
‘You made me remove my own eyes, which were the nicest feature on my body after my dick!’
‘You’ve got a girl and a cat!’ I defended my writing, trying to untie myself.
‘I set myself on fire!’ Serafino complained. ‘Couldn’t I have gotten a job and afford rent?’
‘The fire was lit, though.’ I tried to joke, but the pun did not land, and we found ourselves in an awkward silence.
‘Ana Banana Broccoli, you’ve made our lives hell!’ Uzma screamed, ‘I’ve lost my apartment, my wedding deposits. I have lost it all!’
‘You’ve got a cat and a dog, you have your truth, you have your principles…’ I just couldn’t defend myself anymore. The pain in my wrists was real, despite being inebriated.
I was not in a warehouse where I would have thought to bring myself. I was inside the large cave I had created. I saw Giovanni Giorgio smiling from afar, leaning against the pile of gold I gave him. I tried to get his attention by tilting my head. But he clearly enjoyed seeing me struggle in the tiny chair.
Once my panic faded away, I noticed Carmine still on the pile, dead, and his body stank. I looked at Don and Fran, just floating in their suits, without proper bodies, and tried my luck with them. But Fran just looked at me, she was nothing but an encephalon, but if she had a human face, she would have had a grin.
‘You wrote us broke, don’t even look at me. You write everyone broke because you are broke.’
‘Duh… I only know about being broke.’ I laughed, but nobody laughed with me. ‘Y’all know there’s a rotten dragon behind us, right?’
‘He won’t be the only rotten corpse in a moment.’ Reddie whispered, yet his voice echoed inside the mountain. ‘Unless you write me back into a worm. I want to be a worm again.’
‘Your story has ended; you’re a person now.’ Perhaps I should have lied, my wrists, bound behind my back, were hurting and my legs were already numb. ‘C’mon, I’m writing to the best of my abilities, not everyone gets a happy ending…’
‘You are unhappy, so you write us to be unhappy too. You wish us to join you in your misery.’ Zero attacked me, snacking on what seemed like dry brain slices.
‘What the fuck? I am not this miserable…’ but I was—and they knew it. I could not lie to my own characters. My own children wanted me dead, I thought.
Mark floated in front of me. I could hear Celia in the back, guiding him with her voice. He touched my face and removed my glasses. His ectoplasmic hands were cold, I guess Celia had a kink for ghosts—I mean, I was the one who gave her the ghost kink and an Ouija board. He pressed his thumbs into my eyes and removed them.
‘How do you like it now?’
I didn’t like it.
I wanted to touch my hollow eye sockets, but I couldn’t get even a second of peace. Uzma announced herself and tapped the knife blade against my ears. This time, however, the others screamed in unison for her to stop as many them hadn’t voiced their grievances and disagreements with me yet.
Honestly, I felt upset at the thought of my characters hurting and possibly killing me, because I imagined they would consider me some sort of deity. The truth, however, was that I indeed was. But as a deity, I had failed my own children—and perhaps I deserved the torment they were inflicting on me.
‘I suffered a thousand years. I would not mind the suffering if I had at least a name. However, you did not even bother to give me an identity.’
‘It wasn’t important! You were a vampire who searched the dating apps for food; wasn’t that cool? The premise was strong enough that you did not need a name.’
The vampire approached me; I could hear him carrying a bag filled with liquid and violently inserting a plastic straw between my lips. I refused to drink, but the vampire, while savoring the blood gushing out of my eye sockets, punched me in the stomach.
‘Drink it, or else…’
I could tell he was smiling even without eyes.
‘Mark, what did you do with my eyeballs?’ I was just too curious; I had to know before I died from drinking whatever liquid was in the bag.
‘I have them,’ Giovanni Giorgio said, tapping his fingers on a plate. ‘Drink it.’
I had no choice. I sipped the liquid from the bag, and immediately I wished I was dead instead. It was a bag of warm whole milk. I was going to shit myself in front of my characters, oh…
‘I know it was your idea, childish gamer dude!’
‘Do you think you will die without humiliation? What about everybody who died? What about Lily? And Lady Cake? You create us just to toss us into the trash three pages later. We are not toys!’
‘I don’t really understand the commotion, you got a hand job, and you came home, you’re a whiny bitch,’ I said as my stomach grumbled and cramped. ‘I’ll shit, but I’ll shit with dignity!’
But there was no dignity in shitting, I learned fifteen minutes later. I felt my asshole exploding and wetting my trousers. The liquid shit dripped down my legs and even splashed onto my hands. I cried—or rather, I tried to. I still had tear ducts, I just didn’t have eyes, so the tears descended burning my flesh. I did nothing but laugh.
‘I am proud of you. I am proud of your organization and your bravado…’
My left ear fell off. I had no time to continue my speech before my right ear fell off too. I can’t explain it, but the sounds around me became muffled without my ears, as I heard them clapping, screaming, and laughing.
‘I don’t believe she is malevolent,’ Mei said from the back. I knew she smiled at herself for remembering such a beautiful word. ‘She will bleed to death. Giovanni G., where is the meal you promised us?’
‘What meal?’ I screamed in pain.
‘Fucking B-listers!’ I heard her shouting, followed by a roar of approval. ‘Y’all are three-page blog trash.’
‘I was invited too.’ The Zag, now fully grown, untied me with a certain degree of care, mostly focusing on avoiding touching the slurry coming out of my guts. ‘See, I brought help.’
I heard an electric discharge and soon a woman took my ears and glued them back to my head, and reattached my eyes too. Perhaps I wrote this woman too cadaveric, I thought, but she was helping me and I could not tell her to eat a little more in such a delicate moment. The feline roared and showed her teeth to whoever dared to approach the rescue group.
The woman with her was brandishing her scimitar and an axe.
‘Do you think we can take a steak from that?’
‘It has been dead for days; can’t you feel the stench?’ The short-haired wizard screamed at her bulky twin sister.
‘Are you ok?’ The blue alien asked me, and I had a hard time focusing on her blue face and a large, almost-shaped black eyes.
‘I am covered in excrement.’
‘Excrement!’ Mei screamed from behind the pile of gold.
‘What do we do with them, Banana Broccoli?’ The warrior with the feline screamed.
‘Nothing, leave them be, they are actually right about me.’ I chuckled. ‘Can I go home? Uh… thanks for coming.’
‘Home home, home in Brazil, or home with us?’ The warrior asked.
‘Home home.’ I removed my pants and underwear. They’d seen my brain; they could see my pussy too.
The blue alien washed me and the wizard covered me.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?’ She looked at me and hesitated to say what she had in mind, but then said it anyway. ‘We started at the same age, you look older.’
I looked at the TabbySwan citizens, scared behind the gold pile, terrorized by the feline and the warrior lady. Now that I was freed and washed, I decided to walk around the dead dragon and see them one last time. My ego was bruised too, in fact, I was approaching my forties and they were stuck at thirty. I had tried face masks and tretinoin, but they did not operate miracles, and I still looked my age.
‘I would have done the same. I hope you find the peace for which you are searching,’ I told my scared characters, but they were looking past me at the feline spitting acid.
‘Peace?’ Giovanni Giorgio said, approaching me. ‘Your worlds are unfair and hurtful. I hope nothing but the same for you.’
‘Bitch, I was born miserable.’ The feline appeared behind me, and Giovanni Giorgio retreated. He still had the dish stained with blood from my eyes. ‘What was the plan?’
‘Put your body to rest with Carmine. He does look peaceful.’
I laughed. ‘I gave you everything, ungrateful child.’
‘Why are you wasting time?’ The warrior screamed, ‘they’re not important.’
‘They’re important to me. Don’t boss me around, you know exactly where you came from!’
‘Wanna try me?’
‘Let’s do it!’ I had sobered up, and the warrior was getting on my nerves. I would show her real moves. But the wizard held me. The Zag held the warrior, laughing at how familiar this was, and it enraged the woman he was constraining.
‘Cool off!’ The wizard screamed at the warrior. ‘Home, right?’ She looked at me and touched the corners of my eyes. ‘If you want, I can fix a little bit…’
‘My old and decrepit face?’ I slapped her hand. ‘I guess I will enjoy the privilege of aging. Take me home.’
‘Bye, losers!’ The warrior said, and then she took a fat blunt out of her pocket. ‘I’d be angry too if everything I had was a digital footprint. Wanna?’
Of course I wanted to.
