A Perfect Place.

Having sipped a cup of coffee and settled into my favorite writer’s chair, I once again—surely for the hundredth time—convinced myself that the continuation of the tale of Skip Sikorsky, nicknamed Birdie, simply had to be written. Opening my laptop with confidence and perching my fingers above the keyboard that so hopefully awaited miracles, I held a pause. The blank page of the first chapter stared back at me like a ghastly white blot, and I quickly typed: “Beneath the red sky the clouds yawned open once more, loosing a flock of hungry kites to circle above the deserts of night…” Rereading it, I grimaced and promptly smoothed the sentence down. I never delete before I’ve tried to comb and pat it flat. It’s a ritual of sorts, as if the text and I are two different temperaments entirely: he, a rough-hewn lummox; I, his fussy housekeeper, forever displeased. A “green runt” like that needs care: love, grooming, feeding. And if I can’t get him presentable—fit to face the good Lord—then off my friend goes into the bin. I dread even to imagine the place where failed texts are flung. Some sort of black hole that greedily slurps in whatever a person, foolishly, has left unattended… Sighing and boldly mustering my fingers for battle, I wrote next: “The sky above the red labyrinth was once again sheeted over with black clouds, lightning flashing far off, there where, beyond the horizon of blood-red mountains, stretched the dim, darkly-alluring Purgatory…” Having read that and breathed a satisfied little sigh, I rattled on across the keys. The third book about Skip Sikorsky was meant to be special. The story of a youth who landed in Hell and set about building himself an unbelievable career there had gone over with a bang for many. While real-life teens finishing school were being forced to make that heaviest choice of a future profession, my character dodged those stresses and, by a nudge of fate, shifted into Hell. In the lines of the first book, Skip broke out of a hated school, befriended a couple of demons, went through a survival course with them in Purgatory, and took up his post. One profession, when there is no choice at all, damn well simplifies life. The tale turned out funny, tragicomic, and uncannily timely. To accept yourself as you are—at times wicked, envious, yet a sweet, honest lad with no prospects—and still manage to find your way out—or rather, your way in—to a new and vivid world where you can pull any sort of crazy stunt. Readers loved Skip, and I sat down to write the next adventure. The second book turned out no worse than the first—events moved fast and headlong. Skip stopped being the typical teenager who only wants a laugh and became a fairly ordinary demon who couldn’t care less about anything. The threat came from where none had expected. Tormentor Skip, together with his fellow demons, entered into uneven resistance against the feathered ones who donned armor and set about fiercely reclaiming Purgatory, holding those lands to be historically theirs. Unbelievable, no? The angels were so impenetrably sure of their own rightness that sending them back to the heavens (where, indeed, they belong) with the stroke of a sword proved pleasant not only for the main character but for me as well. To be honest, I enjoyed writing the second book more. Skip was fleshing out; he grew livelier, denser, more interesting; and the world where my character was growing from a boy into a strong youth filled up with piquancies. But what, pray, to devise for the third!? And then I stared at the text again: “…In the merry crackle of a hot fire, whose tiny coals shot off with sparks, one could glimpse fate—if one sweated a fair bit and recalled the dull lessons of old Kroshkovich, who taught the lads last year the craft. ‘What if we hit Heaven first, eh, Birdie?’ Shpar looked at his friend the demon, sprawled amid the stones, and let out a juicy belch after swigging strong grog from a flask. ‘They’ve got things worth lifting. We’ll hijack a couple of souls…’ Skip made a sour face and scratched lazily behind his ear. In their pot boiled a stew of tail-borers’ meat the lads had gathered among the rocks, and both demons sniffed appreciatively. Matis Povzduch, nicknamed Shpar, as always had already laid out their copper spoons, while Skip rummaged in his pockets and fished out some dried bread crusts—the only things left after their last raid on Fat Beaver’s bakery. Their turn to visit the baker given over to the deadly sin of Gluttony and helldeal him wouldn’t come up for another week, and the lads had no idea where to scrounge supplies before then. Bagging another couple of plump souls was the right call. Shaking down the already meager cellars of their serial-killer blacksmith and their plowman-murderer would have been pointless. ‘Shame last year’s war ended in nothing,’ Zorg (in life: Oleg Potikhonkov) growled gloomily. ‘So we drove ’em off—and then what? As if the feathered will just give it a rest.’ After watering the bushes, Zorg spat a jet of saliva through the gap of his teeth and came back to the fire. His steps were ponderous, as were his arm-swings; over the last year he’d also broadened at the shoulders, stretching taller like a crag. Even their foreman no longer rushed to bark crudely at Sikorsky’s pack—much less punch a fist into the guts. Especially after three youngsters had sent a whole army of featherlings flying above the clouds with a cannon that shot lemons. That lemon juice eats through angels’ feathers the lads learned by accident. One day Skip lobbed his half-eaten supper at a warrior of Heaven, and it melted the feathers in bald splotches upon his rosy skin. Demons loved lemons even more than meat and gathered them in the gloomy orchards of Purgatory to feast on the juice. That day, the white‑winged warrior proudly scooped up his scalded little wings and ran for home, which sent Sikorsky’s pack into hysterical laughter. When those feathered ones go rocketing above the clouds, clutching their white, fluffy plumage in cowardice, it looks so comical it takes your breath away. Endlessly watchable! ‘I can’t stand them!’ Shpar hissed. ‘You’re a demon,’ Sikorsky replied calmly. ‘Your job is to hate the feathered. It’s in our blood.’ But Zorg, for some reason, sighed…” I halted my battle across the keys and fell to pondering again. What else to make up—I hadn’t a clue! A new enemy can be added; it always works. Some sudden monster that will crawl up from beneath Purgatory and begin attacking everyone: angels, demons, even those precious, unmoored souls. And to defeat it, the lads would have to team up with the angelets. Hm, I thought—why, that’s not a bad plot shaping up. The cool standoff with the feathered will reach an apogee; the main thing is not to overdo it so the feathered don’t turn Skip “good.” By design Sikorsky is a negative character and has to stay that way. A classic screw-up who somehow, by miracle, wriggles out of the worst situations in the most ridiculous ways. All the more reason to start weaving in a love story quietly. And love stories, I’ll be honest, are not my strong suit. In the second book I’d already threaded into the plot a certain cool demoness from the labyrinth who moonlighted in the fine art of torture. A feral she-demon with a vast arsenal of torture implements. She and Sikorsky even shared something like a kiss, but in the end the she-demon known as Lyutaya—“the Fierce”—saved one of the Feathered, who then carried her up into the heavens. A lovely story—only it left Sikorsky, well, dumped. Naturally, he hated the world all the more for it. But that’s fine; a demon is supposed to be evil and hate the world. I’ve nothing to add there. Yet in my own defense, I’ll say this: when the work flies, it flies—slick as oil—and it doesn’t matter whether it fits your original conception. It writes as it writes, and you get what you get. In the third story I needed, once again, to add another dashing lass who would flow into the demons’ pack and promptly start tormenting Sikorsky with nuptial games. Honestly, I have no bright romantic subplot in mind, but this time the lad ought to succeed. It’s about time—first sex and all that… I don’t even know… The story won’t go. I strolled to the kitchen, raided the fridge, and piled my plate high—the right idea always comes to mind while you’re chewing. “…For several days now Skip had been wandering off from the lads and lying for a long time under the grim sky of the blackening abyss. He watched the clouds creeping across the heavens like the lost souls of ships and recalled his lived days. Most of those days were mind-numbingly dull. Like yesterday, for instance! Hunting in the Wastes, the lads rousted a manypaw worm from its lair to gut it properly. The blood of a desert dweller fetched thirty pepper-coins a flask, and they’d filled eight flasks yesterday. They’d have filled more, but the empty flasks ran out. Collecting their reward at the exchange stall, they went on through Hell’s alleys to spend what they’d earned. Ducking into Wheezy’s shop—he’d been retired for a year now, which is to say old and dull—they filled their bags with supplies of jerky from wild hell-swine, tossed in the labyrinth’s finest mind-befuddling roll-ups, and moved on. It would last them a week for sure, and then Fat Beaver—and they could load up again. All well and good, at times even fun, but Skip sighed thoughtfully, watching the clouds. The mindless hustle of bagging critters and netting unmoored souls no longer cheered him. Everything seemed to have lost its meaning the moment Lyutaya vanished into the heavens with that angel-boy…” Back in my writer’s chair, I skimmed the text. I don’t recall writing about sighs and gasps. That won’t do. Readers don’t like sighing, suffering lads. The character’s core should be kept strong. I edited text and returned to brooding. Obstacles are needed. Through obstacles the character “levels up,” and from a stripling he becomes a man—and since we’re still far from manhood, let Sikorsky and his pals drift for a while longer, as in life. Booze-ups, carousing, the rest. And here you can’t get by without a love story at all. Ah, hell, I’ll have to invent one after all. “…Venus in the sky flared with bright maroon patches. Night, as always, filled the walls and alleys of the labyrinth with new doors—open any one by chance, and you might fall into yet another little hell, like a matryoshka within a matryoshka. Once Skip blundered through a door where a caravan of giant buffalo were stamping the ground, crushing another sinner beneath their massive hooves. Sikorsky lingered, watching the sinner’s contrition, but caught a lash across the back from a demon-tormentor and beat a hasty retreat. As a rule, at these hours the personal worlds for torment are visited by master-tormentors—the best demons who know how to craft suffering—and it’s best not to fall under their hot hand when they’re at their work… Without much thought, the youngsters swung into the tavern called Hounds of the Pit, making straight for the job foreman’s desk. A hulking demon, who had already grown himself a tenth fang along his spine, deep maroon fists and rasped: ‘Nothing for you! Get lost!’ Picking his sharp teeth with a lemon toothpick, he flicked it at Skip. Skip winced and once more beat a retreat. In Hell they all loved to beat a retreat. It was like chugging grog or going to the shit-pit: if something’s wrong—go retreat; it’s safer there. The lads scratched their napes and, wearing hurt expressions, went to the bar. ‘What’ll it be, boys?’ asked the old peppermonger Kloberta, narrowing an eye. The dark maroon skin of her face was all run with wrinkles; the black beadlike eyes glinted in the dim lights; and a thin mouth, hiding a half-rotten palisade of teeth, stretched into a scornful grimace. She could have sloshed the lads a mug for free, had she a soul, but since the peppermonger had none, she scowled at them and held out a bony hand, scooping up coins. ‘This will cover only one bottle.’ ‘Then bring one,’ Zorg muttered. Kloberta hissed into his eyes and hobbled to the far wall to fetch a couple of bottles. ‘You’ll pay for the second later. I’ll mark it as credit.’ Had the lads a soul, they would have thanked Kloberta for her generosity with a smile; but since what they had instead of a soul was matter of pure evil, they bowed and hastened to beat their retreat. Night burst into bloom with colors. Outside came moans and clanking. A few sinners dashed past the tavern, fleeing hellhounds—and that, too, was only part of the torment: first to let sinners break free, run the night with a hope of salvation, and then, at the very last minute before dawn, to catch them and tear the poor devils to pieces. There is no exit from a labyrinth for those locked within it. Each night begins the sinners’ suffering anew. Seated at the table, the lads drank and savored the moment. Shpar let down his long hair and began eyeing the few ladies who had come to knock back a couple before work: a flock of fine mid-aged demonesses with bright red curls, and a sweet cherubette in the corner, quietly sipping the blood of a manypaw worm—black as her beautiful long feathers on the wings. ‘Whew, what a looker,’ Shpar squirmed, winking at the pale-skinned fallen cherub-girl. ‘They say cherubs have nothing in their pants either,’ Skip scolded him. ‘So don’t be in a rush to wink.’ ‘What?’ Shpar blurted, his face changing in an instant. ‘Nothing how? How do you know?’ Zorg snickered, and Skip lowered his brow, blowing the grog foam off the brim of his mug. ‘How-how… Heard it.’ While Shpar digested that information, their mutual friend Slingshoty—a freelance demon—burst into the tavern. Freelance he called himself, proud that he didn’t have to obey a pack elder; the lads, however, quietly called him an outcast, driven from a pack for being too insufferable. Slingshoty was a psycho, no doubt. Last year he crawled inside a many-legged worm to save himself from desert ticks. A desert tick isn’t just an insect—it’s a massive filth-bug spitting sulfur and devouring anything it sees, including pushy, foolish youngsters who stray into the wastes by accident. The only thing that filth-bug won’t eat, in fact, is worms with thick, black, scalding blood… Anyway, Slingshoty latched onto Sikorsky’s pack last year while they were wandering the landscapes of gloomy Purgatory and somehow never unlatched. After getting plastered on grog one night and stoned on roll-ups, Slingshoty jabbed a finger into the night and rasped: ‘I don’t know about you, colleagues, but I see a handful of feathered in the bushes.’ Zorg and Shpar sprang up: ‘Where!???’ Skip also made out how, between thickets, a funnel formed, and from it proud angelets began flitting out, immediately flicking their wingets free of clinging burrs. Sikorsky’s pack’s task was to snatch a prisoner who would later be interrogated by seasoned masters to learn the feathered’s plans. Seeing the chance, Skip jumped up too. ‘Forward!’ Skip shouted, and five hell‑brutes—among them the demoness Lyutaya—charged into the fray. Battered fair and proper in the fight, they sent seven heavenward, dissolving them into the night. From the sharp blows of swords the feathered did not simply leave their bodies as ordinary earthly humans do, but turned to ash, after which they revived again in their own heavenly bowers among gardens and blessed psalms. The same thing befell dwellers of Hell’s walls, only without psalms and gardens. Having “died,” demons were reborn through certain torments, fleshing over and changing shape each time—more and more resembling true hellish monsters. Those who often underwent this miracle of rebirth ended up looking like a heap of sinew and fangs. The process, they say, is neither swift nor gentle; it fosters a true hell-dweller’s spirit. Skip had never yet passed through this, nor had his friends—save Slingshoty. The psychotic demon had once died, after which he decided he wasn’t going to die anymore and left the pack, where dying the death of the brave was considered prestigious… Having sent seven heavenward, turning their bodies into gracious, exclusively blessed ash, they noosed the last one and finally exhaled. ‘Unworthy, you will achieve nothing by taking me captive!’ the angel-boy crowed proudly, spitting away his flaxen locks from his face. The lads laughed, bound his wings tighter with ropes, and kicked him forward. Escorting a prisoner out of Purgatory’s zone would have been the simplest task—if it hadn’t turned out that, for everyone in Sikorsky’s pack except Lyutaya, their wings had been shredded to rags in the fight. The demons’ thin, membranous “rake” needed reconstruction that would take a week at least! But to reach Hell’s labyrinth where seasoned healers could patch them up, they need to cross the desert where ticks, many-legged worms, and all manner of things dwelled. After a bit of think-tanking around the fire, the lads decided to go on foot—but only by day, when the creatures burrowed into the sands. And when they learned their prisoner’s name was Marchosias, the lads burst out laughing, and the adventure ahead no longer seemed so cheerless. ‘Hey, Marchosias—Mar‑Chesty‑as, Mar‑Titty‑ass, Shag‑o‑sias…’—and on in the same delightful, rollicking spirit. The angel-boylooked proudly ahead at fate and only held his tongue. ‘I know you,’ Skip wouldn’t let up, dogging the angel-boy’s heels. ‘You’re the one I doused with my lemon broth that time! You liked it? Is that why you’re back? Can’t leave off, can you? Well, never mind—our seasoned masters will show you things you never dreamed of… Don’t doubt it.’ ‘I do not fear perishing at the paws of hellhounds, you most unworthy among the living in all three worlds! Foul demons, what know you of sacrifice—the kind only the pure light of the Divine Spark can bring!?’—and on in the same delightful, rollicking spirit… On the second day the angel-boy’s feet plainly tired, and he began tripping in his Roman sandals. His red cute skirt, like a true legionary’s, was no less frayed than the demons’ wings escorting him, and his leather cuirass was no longer white-and-gold but dust-red, blending with the skirt’s hue—or whatever they wear under their breastplates iced with curlicues. ‘Say, Marcho‑Sad‑Chops…, do you always wear cute dresses up there in Heaven?’ Skip asked him. The angel-boy made no reply—only kept a sturdy silence, striding on, prodded forward by snickers in his back, like a Generalissimo marching proudly to his death. By the plan, Hell’s seasoned master-tormentors would have wrung all the needed information out of that feathered one once the lads delivered Marshy‑Arse into their clawed hands—but Marchy‑Chops fled with Lyutaya, ascending with her to the heavens on the third day of their journey. How and when Marcho‑Muckchops managed to fill the demoness with angelic virtue—no one would ever know. There had been no word from the runaway demoness since… Ah, yes… A sad event, one Skip didn’t like to remember. Sitting at the tavern table, watching Slingshoty, still out of breath, snatch Zorg’s mug for a swig, Skip calmed himself and prepared to hear something fascinating. ‘Hear this? A funnel has opened in Purgatory the size of a Kraken’s ass! They say through it the feathered hordes are preparing to break in. Foremen are gathering the packs. General muster tomorrow at five.’ ‘Bastards!’ Zorg slammed a fist into the table. ‘We’ve got to grease the cannon quick…’ Shpar replied, flustered. ‘Can I join your pack?’ Slingshoty piped up at once. ‘You lot are good blokes—no showboating.’ ‘No problem,’ Shpar echoed. Skip was about to back that when, but he saw a feather. A white feather that spiraled slowly through the air, sliding and settling lightly upon the table. No one seemed to see it but Skip, so the demon slapped the feather with his palm and quickly crumpled it in his fingers, hiding it in his pocket. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he told his friends and slowly stepped outside. Circling the tavern’s flank, he looked up, then around, trying to spot something. And there it was—another feather, lying on the ground, glowing in the light of Moon and Venus. Following the feathers forward, Skip climbed several worn stairways and found himself on the roof of one of the houses—a straight, flat roof, like all roofs in Hell. Crossing it, searching the night for someone, Skip noticed in the shadow of the neighboring crooked building a figure in a dark, long cloak, huddled and trying to hide the tips of white, shining wings that peeked from beneath the cloth. Sikorsky swallowed and came closer, looking uncertainly at the dark silhouette. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Came to you,’ the blue-eyed angel-boy answered in a quiet voice—and once again Skip marveled at the color of those angelic eyes. The color of clear, cloudless heavens. Skip still remembered how wonderful it was to gaze up into a boundless summer sky. The blue expanse where free birds go winging. Once upon a time he himself had dreamed of becoming a bird, when he was very small. He wanted to soar into the heavens, spreading free wings—and fly on forever until the horizon ran out. To fly, savoring freedom, where no one could reach, no one could touch. But that was so long ago, in another life to which there is no road back. ‘To me?’ Skip asked the angel-boy, looking uncertainly into his eyes. It was that very Marchosias. In their first meeting, Skip’s friends—busy laughing at the wounded angel-boy flying off—had missed how Sikorsky’s brows quivered and never learned that his heart, in that instant, had spun up in a spasm… That very Marchosias whom Skip, watching him as he flew away with Lyutaya to the sky, had been honestly afraid he would never see again… And later, catching sight of him on the field of battle, when Sikorsky’s pack deployed their invention—a cannon firing lemon pulp—Skip did nothing but shield that hapless angel-boy with his membranous wings from the incoming shells… ‘You mustn’t come here,’ Skip flared. ‘Fly away! A place like this isn’t for someone like you!’ ‘Someone like me?’ the angel-boy asked back, peering straight into Skip’s eyes. ‘Someone unlucky! You’re always getting yourself into trouble! I’ve never seen a feathered one as accident-prone as you!… Why have you come!? Is it that pointless angelic virtue again? You came to bend yet another demon to divine providence?’ ‘Perhaps,’ the angel smiled—and the smile was so pure and radiant that something in Skip’s chest unfurled like dawn: bright, boundless, and clean, the kind that ends sinners’ torments when it comes with silence. ‘When you were covering me with your wings on that field of battle…’ the angel-boy whispered, ‘you looked at me like that. And I came to ask why you looked at me so.’ ‘I…I,’ Skip replied foolishly, gazing at the wondrous creature—then he tripped on the words, stammering horribly, ‘It’s…It’s because you…you are very…very…you…’ And then the demon had his own private, mind-spinning sunrise. Skip forgot he was in Hell. He forgot, all at once, the sinners and their pains, forgot demon-friends and all the adventures lived here—he forgot everything. Touching his lips to the very warm, very pleasant lips of the angel-boy he had so long dreamed of in secret, Skip slowly closed his eyes and seemed to fly away. Somewhere far off, just like a bird spreading its wings… Carefree, free, and fearless… And it was the most beautiful thing he had ever felt in his life…” Opening my eyes, I realized I’d fallen asleep. The laptop lay on my knees; I rubbed my eyes and got up to pour myself a cup of coffee, and when I returned to my favorite writer’s chair and reread what had been written, I promptly spat my coffee in a fountain, splattering the screen: ‘WHAT!?????’ I swear to you, ladies and gentlemen—I did not write those lines! All that about cutesy kisses and whatnot! Grabbing the laptop, without even wiping the coffee specks off the screen, I highlighted the text from the moment the feather appeared in the tavern, to delete it mercilessly—but the keyboard went mad and typed, in big letters: ‘DON’T DO THAT!’ In a state of shock I slid the laptop off my knees, sprang to my feet, paced the room like a lunatic, clutching my robe about me all the while, then looked again at the screen, which glowed, awaiting my reaction—my act. I stepped up again, glanced at that glow, and typed quickly, snatching my fingers back at once as if afraid the brute would bite: ‘Who are you?’ The laptop thought a bit, and the keyboard itself wrote just four letters, scarcely making a clack: ‘Skip.’ ‘Impossible!’ I shot back in a flash, a scream churning inside me. And the keyboard continued: Skip fell to his knees and, with tears, begged as he looked with his black eyes to the heavens: ‘Please! I can’t hide it any longer!’ ‘Hide what?’ ‘That I’m in love with him!’ ‘In love?’ ‘Yes! That’s what it’s called, is it?’ ‘No,’ I answer in fright. ‘You are the demon Skip Sikorsky whom I invented. And I did not invent you in love with an angel-boy! How did this happen!?’ The keyboard thought a little and stubbornly went on: Skip looked around and slowly rose from the dark red stones that strewn the ground at the edge of the wastes and the city of Hell. A spark of resolve flashed in his eyes. ‘How could one not love that beautiful creature?’ he answered firmly. ‘In creating him so astonishing, did you not consider I might feel something more than mockery? Especially when I myself am filth and gloom, and he is the purest light, hope, love!?…’ ‘Now hold it!’ I flared, shaking my laptop. ‘Angelets are pompous prats who annoy! Demons hate the feathered—it’s in their blood!’ ‘Yes, he’s pompous,’ Skip—rather, the crazed keyboard—cut me off. ‘So what!? I like it! I like it when he acts like that—when he tips up his nose and frowns! When he frets and bites his lower lip! And yes, he’s funny, but that’s so wonderful! He’s so sweet, so endearing, in that little skirt of his! In those sandals and the scrollwork on his armor! You made him that way yourself! And I fell in love with him! I want to see him—you get me? I want to hear him! I want to be with him! Always! That’s love, isn’t it!?’ ‘No, not love! I can’t even understand what’s going on! You’re a character! You can’t think for yourself! I spent the whole second part writing how those feathered ones get on your nerves—and now you’re telling me it’s all otherwise!???’ ‘It is otherwise!’ Skip replied, tossing his head and shaking wings. ‘From the first day I saw him, he’s been my fixation! When he was flying off on those wounded little wings!… For God’s sake, will you understand already!’ ‘Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain!’ I scolded Skip like an enraged mother: ‘I don’t know what you’ve invented for yourself there, but I never designed you as a lover of tender feelings! So stop it! This won’t do! And I am not writing a story where you fly in the sky with an angel-boy, spreading hearts!’ ‘But why!? I tried to tell you before! Reread it if you don’t believe me! I hinted every way I could! A sigh here, a sigh there. I’ve got white feathers stuffed in all my pockets! And in that final battle, I really was saving him while you were avidly describing the fight! I disappeared for a while there, remember? That was exactly why!’ ‘Stop it!’ I roared. And I at once recalled the glorious fight: swords flashing in the noonday sun above the red sands of the wastes. The angels were winning, but at the needed moment Sikorsky’s pack dragged up to the knoll a cobbled-together cannon-catapult and began slinging great balls of mud studded with lemon pulp. Slingshoty and Zorg loaded, Shpar pulled the lever on command, and Skip dashed into the crowd, knocking off flaxen heads along his path. From that moment Slingshoty earned his name, for he shot divinely, and Zorg was exalted to the status of Demon of the Year! That must have been when Skip tangled with that angel-boy—damn him! Two of Heaven’s folk managed to escape, among them that vile Marcho‑Git, burn him to hell!!! ‘Are you saying the story writes itself!?’ I bellowed, hammering the keys. ‘And I, as the author, don’t even influence it!? What nonsense! Characters can’t live lives of their own!’ And I highlighted the text again. ‘Please, don’t do it!’ Skip pleaded. But I pressed Delete with conviction and sent all that text into the blackest black, where all the failed texts go. That’s it. I will hear no objections. This disgrace will not pass under my pen. I said it, and that’s final. The screen flickered a little and calmed. At that, I deemed our dialogue exhausted, and all that strangeness—just my imagination. And the next day the story began to live of itself, and I could only just manage to correct it—as far as that was possible at all.