Hey Jenny
A SatireParodyPastiche of the Writing Process in General, and Maybe Romance Novels
"Hey, Jenny. Remember that story I was writing? The parody of those romance novels you like?"
"Yeah."
"What do you want the main characters to be named?"
"Uh… name the guy Sandra… and the girl Timothy."
"Okay—wait, what?"
"I think Timothy is a cute name for a girl. Sandra's… too mature for a cute girl."
"Uh, whatever. Alright then, suit yourself."
"Congratulations, it's a girl!" "Let's name her Timothy!"
"Hey, Jenny. How old do you want them to be?"
"High school. I don't want them to be old."
"Alright."
Seventeen Years Later
Timothy brushed her fluorescent pink and blue hair out of her eyes. Her right eye was red and her left eye was blue, which meant that she never needed those cardboard 3-D vision glasses. She was five and a half feet tall and, unbeknownst to her, she was one of the 1 in 400 people who have horseshoe kidneys. She sighed, picked up her textbooks, and prepared herself for the long trip down the hallway of her high school. "I wish I had a boyfriend," she thought. Right on cue, she ran into a boy, dropping her books all over the floor.
"Hey, Jenny. Did you draw something today? Can I see?"
"Yeah. It's me!"
"Hmm, it looks nothing like you."
"It's me, if I were a boy. And blond. And had green eyes. And looked skinnier and younger. And didn't have glasses, and…"
The boy was blond, with green eyes. For a brief moment, Timothy achieved eye contact with those captivating green eyes.
"Here, let me get that for you," said the boy.
"Oh god, this is such a cliché," said Timothy as the fourth wall shattered into a million pieces. "It's totally obvious that I'm going to end up with this guy at the end, anyway."
"Hey, Jenny. How's this?"
"I dunno… the whole thing with a girl dropping her books is really overdone."
"Hey, you know what would make this even more cliché? If there's a rival of some kind."
"Okay, but I don't want two girls. I want two guys who want the same girl."
"Okay."
Just then, another guy arrived on the scene.
"Hey, Jenny. Look what I drew. It's a response to your drawing."
"Who is that?"
"It's a portrait of me, if I were a guy. Look, if I were a dude I'd wear sunglasses indoors like a douchebag, and…"
"Hello, ladies," the new arrival said, brushing dust off his vest and surveying the scene over the rims of his sunglasses as though he were in a Kubrick film. "Need a hand? By the way, my name's Mullet. John Mullet."
"Oh my. How unexpected," Timothy said flatly. "I wonder who I'm going to choose."