“The facts were these—,” he started.

“Please stop—,” she ended.

“She was—,” he began.

“That is so cliche, I’m trying to concentrate, please,” she closed, the sky darkened, and she could feel two eyes boring into her back.  She did not turn. She knew the exact look she was getting, the all too predictable change in atmosphere. Instead, she said: “Fine.”

“She was positively miffed, if not outright angered. Though she was well past counting by twos, here she tied her shoes ‘bunny style’ while she tried to assess the situation. They had found themselves outside of a bodega of sorts, in a vague-a-ly deserted town,” he opened, sipping noisily at the last bit of Ginger Ale in his can. He had suggested they shop lift the snacks in order to spice things up, but she set her money down on the counter and insisted that ‘neither of us really walk the walk’.

They had walked the walk, however, two miles before catching a bus out of town.

“Vague-a-ly? Really?,” she replied, her eyebrow as poised as a sword or something similarly phallic, dusting off her stockings, adjusting the wings on her boots.

“I’m just making things easier on my replacement, you know? Smooth things over so no one gets mad. I didn’t exactly leave a two week notice, and it wasn’t exactly a ‘quitting’ job. Train the temp, as it were. No need to feel nervous when there’s no standard, is there? IS THERE,” he shouted toward the sky.

No, none, certainly. Not that the replacement, being omniscient, could really feel nervous. Not that the replacement, being much better than its predecessor, had anything to be nervous about. So for the sake of ‘getting on with it’ (not that there was much ‘getting on’. They really should have robbed the place blind), let’s:

The facts are these: There was once a little girl who read many books. She made a life of reading books and grew to bear the weathered look of someone who was always traveling without going very far. Her skirts fluttered in the wind dramatically, her lips were pursed with a sense of preoccupation that did not go away, and her boots bore the wings of Hermes, for the daring escapes she would never have to make. She bought them precisely because they could, and like every very clever spendthrift, she knew it the moment she saw them. As though they just met. And as with every clever spendthrift, everyone she met believed her—

Including our dear, beloved, irritating, gullible, retired narrator (currently sipping at a soda that is no longer there and getting used to the feel of live skin cells and blood that travels through)veins). You see, they had developed a sort of office romance. One does not, unless decidedly ornery, travel through literature alone. There’s a guide. A companion. And sometimes it’s in the body of whoever you’re sneakily following from the comfort of a bed or desk, but mostly it is, or was, a voice on call. The Narrator. Phil, we’ll call him, as he’s now a he, sort of. He has identified as male.

“Phil?”

Enjoy. Phil and—

“Natalia.”

Oh, fine, fuck. Natalia. Well, we’re all just great at this now, aren’t we? Phil and Narration-Savvy Natty here, like two middle-management pencil pushers of a different sort, bumped into each other more than a fax machine did whatever the hell a fax machine does. He had a way with words and she had a way of putting them together. Poor Natty, who would have been better off falling for a protagonist who would grow up, fall in love, and leave her, as was healthy, fell in love with her companion. It was all very Doctor Who, in its own way.

“YOU BIG NERD! Dorky Dork. I knew it! Didn’t I tell you, Nat—”

The former narrator ceased his goddamn blather, because there was trouble coming!

Yes, trouble. You see, Natalia, at the time, didn’t know how things worked. To be fair, no one really does. We have a system (a SYSTEM, PHIL). Reading is an experience, and we at Penguin publishing do our best to make that experience a good one. Pages crisp like apples, print that only smells better over time (vanilla), and a narrator that stays in the goddamn books and does his fucking JOB. PHIL.

“WHAT. WHAT IS IT?” he shouted, narrowly dodging a street sign that had mysteriously begun to fall near him.

“Oh, mysteriously, that’s rich,” he sneered, with his ugly mortal face.

“Now that’s just unfair. That’s unreliable narration and unless you’re going to do something clever with it, you’re wasting our time,” Nat said, taking the ugly mortal how-the-hell-did-he even-do-this by the arm.

He smiled at her, and of course he did, she damn near brought him to life. Or mortality. Whatever THIS is. It reeks of an Oedipus complex, to be honest, and the truth is this:

One fateful day not too many days ago, after basking in the post-reading confusion of whatever it is exactly happened in Murakami’s 1Q84, it became very clear to the young Natalia that she had stuck it out just for the careful (if somewhat absent) direction of the narrator. She had missed him. It. Whatever. In a moment she wasn’t proud of, she held the book to her chest in a sort of wistfulness. Like movie tears that could bring things back to life, her wistful little sigh echoed through time and space. So twee was her little sigh that the universe could not bear it. To placate her, it had made her dear narrator manifest. Flash and bone and tweed—most certainly underage.

“I’m about as old as the printing press, actually. So please do look that up,” Phil said, tossing out his soda can.

“I pictured him about 18, you know. He’s just baby-faced! He’s my age, I swear it. Stop misleading them!” Natalia shot back to no one. The ephebophile was clearly frustrated. The sky distorted a little. Fuzzy like the static on an old T.V. as is the familiar visual. It was snowing now. They were supposed to be in Baltimore or something, but odds were good this was no longer Baltimore, but something off.

“Silly. Uncreative,” Natalia corrected. “Just like New York. New Pork is it, now? Turn all my stuff into pigs, will you? It was cute at first.”

You see, it’s not often Penguin Books loses its narrator. It’s not often that an intangible thing becomes…a thing. This is clearly something that should be taken care of, and we at Penguin feel it is our responsibility to set things right.

“You’re after us, is the thing, right? Chasin’ us around a little? Murderously?,” Uncle Phil, ornery Fresh Prince star interjected.

“Oh, come on. That’s not even—” but she didn’t have the time. A lamp post was on its way down this time, but she and her  little Hermes boots sped her and her little boy toy a few feet, out of harm’s way.

“See? They’re magic!” Natalia grinned, and Phil could not help but catch her contagion.

Yes, magic. She believes it, and why the fuck not. I’m out of smokes. The facts are—

“NO!,” shouted Phil.

Well, fine, I guess I won’t rip off a T.V. show like the former Rugrats child actor. The truth is this: Natalia and Phil have a plan. We at Penguin feel it is our duty to stop the plan at whatever cost, but there’s a problem.

“They don’t know the plan,” Phil beamed, positively ruddy. “The facts are these: We know the plan and they do not. It’s a very good plan.”

It’s a very good plan. They insist. A car speeds by and Natalia hurries to the door, with Phil on her arm. They are fast and confident and the car is shiny, but familiar. It must all be part of the plan. Natalia and Phil are on a trip. They feel an important urge to go. We at Penguin find it imperative to stop them, and we will.

Natalia and Phil speed off in a car that the narrator cannot trace in a direction we’ll have to catch up with.

The problem here is that Natalia might be right. There might, and don’t quote me on this, be some magic involved. With their motives unclear, Natalia and Phil set off into the snowy sunny sunset, and we at Penguin aim to stop them.

It’s just going to take a while.