Chapter Eight. The Crack of Doom.

As you can imagine it isn't the most agreeable thing to know when and how you are going to die. You would think the last thing I would want my author to do is to get back to work and write His novel, because in finishing it He'd be finishing me. Here in limbo that's a frequent topic of conversation. Where do we go when we die? Or when the story ends? Of course, many characters don't die in fiction, many end up living happily ever after, like my friend Agnes from the unwritten Jane Austen. For them it's frustrating knowing the happiness they're missing by being here, probably forever. You see, Agnes' creator is dead. The bit of ivory on which Agnes might have been blessed to be inscribed will never exist. Outside Hell, no one knows about Scorn and Excoriation or most other non-works of dead authors. You only know because I told you, and you probably don't believe me because I've admitted I'm fictional. (But just because I'm a kind of lie doesn't mean I lie, does it?) However: If anyone wants to try their hand at completing Agnes' story, she'd be eternally grateful; and I'd be happy for her too. Though I don't think it will be possible to give you enough information to really capture the essence of her or her fellow characters. You see, what I tell you is filtered through the mind of my author, and I can't be any more brilliant than He is - and He is certainly no Jane Austen.

Still, there's a bit of hope for me. Actually, you could even call it a win-win situation. Scenario One: My author never writes his novel; eventually he dies; I go on, and on, and on, in this void - surrounded by millions of offspring of the greatest imaginations of the human race. I never lack for diversion!

But, you say, there are also countless billions of mediocrities or worse. The interesting, well rounded and plausible characters must be few and far between. True in terms of numbers. However, I'm sure you're also aware that Hell is hierarchical. The well-rounded, eclectic, amusing, moving, psychologically profound and plausible characters occupy the centre of this space. The stock characters, the poorly realized, the non-entities, drift to the margins and roil around each other, coalescing and complaining; they argue unconvincingly that they deserve to be nearer the central fire (which I hasten to add, is the fire of inspiration) but none of the rest of us will listen to them. Lucky for me my author's not as bad as all that.

Now the other scenario: He finally writes his book. What happens to me then? This is speculative, but here's what we think happens to those of us in that situation. We live out our lives just as they are written on the pages of the book. We are no longer conscious of being fictional creations, we no longer know what's going to happen to us. So I'll have a good couple of years hanging about with Arthur, being the bane of Elaine, getting somewhat but not deeply embroiled in the plot, because after all I'm there for comic relief, and to be desired and loathed by the really important characters; not to have a life of my own. Then one evening in late November (or is it February?) a group of us leave a party (Leonard's involuntary coming-out party), and climb into Lionel B--'s car. Some ten minutes later I fall out of his car - or am pushed - and in attempting to get to my feet on the icy pavement instead flip over backwards. There is a sharp crack that everyone involved will remember for years to come - was it the ice breaking? or was it my skull? It's only afterwards that they'll realize what it was they heard, because they drove off without noticing what had happened to me. However I won't care 'cause I'll be dead.