“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”
“See? This is what happens when you go horizontal mmmboping, Zac. You have kids popping up everywhere,” Isaac advised.
“Hey, I’m no one’s father.”
“Y’know, Ike, I think for this kid to be Zac’s son, Zac would had to have been, oh, about four when he was born.”
“Wow, were you horny…”
“Ah ha! I get it!” the boy yelled suddenly. “Of course, it all makes sense now! Whoo hoo!”
And the boy proceeded to dance a little jig.
“Okay, see, now I’m convinced he’s yours,” Taylor joked.
“Shut up. I’m not your dad, kid.”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” the boy said happily. “You’re just another version of my dad. A much younger version. Do you know what this means? It means I’m getting my powers, finally!”
“Oook…”
“Powers?” Isaac questioned.
“Yeah. I’m a Triggered.”
“What’s a Triggered?”
“It’s a… oh never mind. You obviously don’t have powers in this ‘ere dimension.”
“Dimension?” Zac asked suspiciously. “Did The Narrator send you?”
“The Narrator? Yes! Yes! Of course, of course! It all makes sense now. I didn’t think this was my story. She told me she wasn’t going to tell it until she finished some other story,” he rolled his eyes, “like that’s more important than my story.”
“So, how’d you end up here?” asked Taylor.
“My begging must have gotten to her. I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for months in that back room,” he regarded the Hansons gravely. “It’s horrible – the back room. That’s where all the characters The Narrator creates go until she tells their story. Everyone’s so dismal.”
“Umm, right,” Isaac replied.
“We just sit around all day and play games. And watch TV. And read. And lots of other stuff like that.”
“Doesn’t sound all that terrible to me,” Zac observed.
“That’s because you’re not there, day after day, week after week, month after month. We want our stories told too, but noooo! We get stuck waiting. Waiting for that fateful day where we either get our story or… or… or go to oblivion.”
“Oblivion?”
“Yes. Sometimes… sometimes The Narrator forgets us. For good. We go through that hell of waiting, and live an empty life, only to dissolve into forgotteness.”
“Oh do stop your whining. It’s not nearly that bad and you know it. Argh, it’s always dangerous making a character an exaggerator. And even worse when he’s a dramatist. My goodness!”
“You love me. You know you do!”
“Maybe I should make you Taylor’s kid instead of Zac’s. Maybe that would be safer.”
“I don’t care! As long as you tell my story! And umm… do you know when that is yet?”
“Dude, I don’t even know what your name is yet.”
“So! The Narrator is not omnipotent!” Zac shouted gleefully.
“I am to you kiddlywinks. Now, about your story… just let me finish this other one first okay?”
“But, but,” complained the boy, “but I want my story now! Can you stop writing the other one, write mine and then finish the other later?”
“Well, I could, but I’m not so inclined to give you what you want. I mean, let’s face it, you’re rather annoying. I seem to remember what you did to the games cupboard in the back room. Do you know, I got a petition from the other characters to alter your personality? I have half a mind to go right ahead with that idea. Note to self; create dramatic, exaggerating boys who are going through puberty at own risk.”
“Then maybe you should write my story and get me out of your hair.”
“You can’t blackmail me. I created you.”
“Then use me for the reason you created me!”
“You are impatient, aren’t you? Hmm… okay… why don’t I give you a little taste of what I plan on putting you through?”
There was a menacing laugh that echoed through the sky.
“I think that was the wrong thing to say,” Isaac observed.
The boy suddenly lurched into a spasm.
“Here it goes again!” he wailed.
They disappeared.