I entered the slightly messy room, not sure how I'd gotten there, and the person sitting at the computer typing away had no idea either.

Let me try this again: I entered the slightly messy room. Or was it that I appeared there? The person sitting at the computer was just as shocked. . .

"You shouldn't be here."

"What?"

"Keith, you shouldn't be here."

"Isn't this just another dream?"

"Not in the sense that you think it is. You're in danger of completely breaking the fourth wall here."

"Um, okay. . ."

"Did you notice how much harder than normal your little internal monologue was?"

"Well, it didn't seem to flow the way they normally do."

"That's because you're in now, now."

"Huh?"

"You are actually in the moment. I don't have the luxury of editing your comments to make them flow. To make you sound more intelligent that you would. . .well, you get the picture."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm the author you dope."

"You mean you write my story?"

"Yes, we could say that I am sitting in front of my computer, typing out a conversation I am having with you in my head."

"Wouldn't that make you insane?"

"A little, but it is a good insanity, it's the reason you exist after all."

"Before you go around congratulating yourself for that, I have a little something to say to you regarding the past incident with the stalker."

"I know you do, which is the reason you're here."

"Huh?"

"Repetitive use of monosyllables is beneath you, Keith."

"Ok, at the beginning didn't you insinuate that you had no idea how I got here?"

"Of course, but then again, I would be a little less of a deific being if I wasn't at least a little omniscient."

"I saw you hesitating. How can an omniscient being actually be omniscient if you have trouble spelling omniscient."

"Now you're just being cruel."

I smirked at this, but I had something serious to say to this individual.

"Why have you done this to me? Why did you throw the stalker at me, and have Bobby attack Buffy. Why do you inflict these evils upon your characters?"

"Would it make you happy if I told you that I did it because I could?"

"No."

"Of course not. But that is what you expect me to say isn't it. You think me capricious and mean spirited and a bully, even without any evidence to support it."

"Ok, so you're asking for the benefit of the doubt are you? Why should I give it to you?"

"Because of Gretchen."

"What does she have to do with this?"

"So, you're willing to lay the evil at my feet, but unwilling to give me credit for the good?"

I was a bit abashed at this. How could I forget that my life had some major blessings in it. But. . .

"They don't make up for the evil that you inflict on me."

"Keith, I take no pleasure in your sorrow. I have given you outlets for that sorrow. I give you people in your life that can support you through the tough times, and will love you in spite of yourself, and because of who you are."

"What about my mother? Huh? Why did you give me a mother like that?"

"She chose her own path, as all my creations do. I try to give them life and let them follow their own course. She isn't completely without redemption you know?"

"Oh really? Then why hasn't she called me? Why hasn't she apologized to me for her actions?"

"Why haven't you called her? Why haven't you apologized for your actions?"

I was pained by his words, but they really brought home a portion of my actions that I hadn't thought about before. Was there something in my treatment of my mother that was wrong? Did she really deserve to lose her son over something as insignificant as this?

Having talked to my Dad I had a better understanding of what had happened when they got divorced. I knew that he wasn't entirely to blame, but she wasn't entirely blameless either.

"I see you have realized one of the great truths, Keith. Every argument has two sides."

"Don't DO that!"

"I write your words. I can't very well stop reading them unless I stop writing them."

I stopped to consider that for a moment before my thoughts were interrupted.
"All that will do is prevent all of my loyal fans from reading your stories, and I think they would lynch me if I did that."

I chuckled at this.

Something about the person I had been talking to bothered me from the moment I entered the room, and now I realized what it was. His, or was it her, features kept shifting.

"What are you?"

"Good question. Half the time I don't know."

It didn't really answer my question.

"But it will have to do. The time I've allotted for this dream sequence is almost up."

"Last night, while we had the stalker on the floor, I felt like you were trying to orchestrate it so that we let her, him, whatever escape."

"Yes, and your point is?"

"Why?"

"I hate it when things in my stories come too easily for the protagonist."

"Why?"

"Because in my experience life rarely works that way. Coincidence is not as common as people seem to believe, but usually results for a myriad of unknown incidents that result in a seeming happenstance.

"When I write coincidence into a story, I like to know the events that lead up to a given moment in time. I like to know WHY something worked out. Having you just capture this person, and them going to jail seems to defeat the whole purpose of all of that."

"Them not escaping wasn't coincidence."

"Having a bodyguard wearing Kevlar body armor who happened to convince the stalker to shoot her in the chest wasn't coincidence?"

"Ok, I'll grant you that. So, why not go back and change it?"

"Because most inexperienced shooters go for center of mass. You don't know how hard it is to go for a head shot at anything greater than point blank until you actually try it."

"You don't mean. . ."

"No, I shoot rifles mostly. I don't like the balance of pistols. They are really hard to aim as well, and their accuracy is shit at anything greater than about ten feet. Ok, I'm exaggerating. They are good for about twenty yards, but as far as gun ranges are concerned, that's all point blank."

"Ok, more than I wanted to know."

"Don't get me started on shooting weapons out of people's hands. . ."

"I won't. So. Coincidence."

"Just go back to your story, Keith."

And now, I address everyone reading this through my own words. The above 'dream' sequence was originally a free writing that I did to try and shamelessly pad a story that I had come to the end of, and I simply didn't care to recognize it at the time.

My first antagonist had been defeated, the heroes were taking a moment to relax before the next was introduced and I was trying to gather my thoughts as to where the next story would be heading.

The problem was that when I finished this little interchange, one very like others that I have had with my characters in the past, I simply did not want to delete it. I wanted you, my readers, to see a little into the chaos that I call writing.

No, I don't think of myself as god.

I do, however, think of god as an author.

It is not that he puts words into our mouths, but more that he created a scenario that he puts us into the live out.

There is a lot of me in Keith, and so the above is also a sort of conversation that I could have with my own god.

How's that for a convoluted take on something that should be so simple.

I started this story because of a dream I had about the characters. It wasn't the same story I ended up writing, as often has when I begin to organize the disjointed mess that most of my dreams are, but it is true to the core of it. The earrings, for example.

In the dream, they were what actually clued people in to who the Keith/Desdemona character was. I liked the image of those skull earrings, but I didn't want it to be such an issued of outing my character before he was ready.

I don't know that he is ready now, but he at least thinks he is. We will see. That, of course, is for the second story.

For now, this story is complete. I will eventually be returning to Keith, Gretchen, and all of their friends, but for now, at least, the story is at an end.

I hope that everyone enjoyed my story as much as I did in writing it. I may add to this note later, but for now, there is simply no more to say.