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The author of this story had other plans for me. In his, alas, typical ignorance and ineptitude, he decided to use me (one more time!) as the heavy, a really bad guy in a bleak and downbeat story that most likely would gross you out or, in any case, would sure enough give you the willies, as they say, troubled about the essential nature of humankind as represented, exemplified by me, an antihero if there ever was one.
You probably don't know me from Adam or Adam's rottweiler. And I can't blame you for that. How would you know me, and why would you? I ask you! I don't intend to bother you, to cover the whole thing. All you really need to know at this point is that I am precisely what I seem to be (how many of you can make that claim?)-a fictional character, another imaginary person who usually ends up doing and being whatever some author, real or so-called, wants the aforesaid character (usually no more substantial or dimensional than a shadow) wants him or her to be.
There are, of course, many disadvantages to life (and death) as a fictional character. I could go on and on about the subject and soon generate overwhelming ennui all around. But you can easily imagine most of the pains and problems and disappointments. Not least of which is the almost complete absence of free will. Whether I am willing to admit it or not, most of the time I have to be what my author wants. More to the point I have to be and to do what he wants even when it challenges common credibility and violates the sacred and sanctified rules and guiding principles of literary criticism. Which means (think about it; go figure) I not only can't save myself, but also I can't come to his aid, either. I end up having to take the blame, together with my author, for whatever he makes me do or leave undone. That is really and truly unfair. And note the irony of it: I am composed, in fact and in any fiction I find myself involved in, of the figments and fragments of his conscious and unconscious obsessions. He may well think...