It's stupid, stupid, and I wouldn't even do it to a dog.

The thing that really, really sets my teeth on edge, is when they finally get back, it's all tied up, daddy's going to see his daughter again, the lovers walking into the sunset, yadda yadda yadda, and then on the second to last page one of them catches a bullet with the side of the head. Finis.

I don't know. You get on a plane, the last damn plane of 10 you've caught in the past 4 damn months. You get on those planes to go to god knows how many bookshops down god knows how many dark back alleys. You go there after you've taken down a whole world of people who want to cause you and yours a whole world of hurt. You take them down because….well…of something.

Someone.

But you do it and you live.

And then you get on this plane, the last plane, and here he is. Some loon trying to prove something to himself.

Some loon with the safety off right up in your face, waiting to blow your mind out. After all that.

Well, doesn't that just piss you right off?

You know what?

It's kind of a pain in the ass, sometimes, this writer thing. People assume you've got to be a bit deep, for one. Especially if you're young. Then people get all whispery and starry-eyed and you're teen prodigy, Sumiregawa Nenene and you eventually you turn into a grumpy twenty-something woman with a headstart even on hardened forty-year with a pathological cat-owning problem, or so I've been told (maybe in not so many words). The shine on that one sure wore off quick.

Anyhow. This writer thing. With all the trouble it's gotten me into you'd think I'd have a nice little deathbed epiphany all pre-arranged so I can ascend all nicely and prettily with some amazing last blood-flecked profundities to get solemnly printed at the end of biographies for the next thirty-or-so years.

But, to be honest, the whole thing's been so damn ridiculous that I'm more likely to be telling some two-bit fanatic with a glock up which orifice exactly he can shove his grand plan of information unification just before I get turned into a brain slushie than some meaningful heartfelt platitude-laden bullshit.

I guess it's kind of ironic. Or something.

But here I am.

And I look this next two-bit fanatic, embittered hack, whatever he is, in the eye, and tell him that the whole damn thing is a crock of shit.

And guess what. The last plane keeps on flying. Everyone keeps breathing. No windows get smashed, no gust of dramatic wind lifts anyone's hair, etc. And as the guy raises his shaking gun, lucky me, I get to have my last thoughts for the I-don't-know-how-many-eth time.

And just as I'm thinking, good thing Yomiko was in the bathroom when he rolled up, bad planner, this one, real bad, acting by himself, at least she'll be fine…

…just as I'm thinking, same old, probably some library bullshit, think I've seen this sackless excuse sometime before anyway, guess it had to catch up with me sometime…

….just as I see her coming….

….just as I wonder…

….he pulls the trigger.

It hurts.

But I'm fine, really…expected it, had to happen, at least the goddamn book got published, they expected me to fold and I never did, screw em, think this'll shut me up even if I go, ha, they—

-and hell bursts open in Yomiko's eyes—and oh god, stupid, I hate this kind of thing in books, but I just realise, get to have my blood-flecked profound heartfelt bullshit after all and it's all about—

Psst. Ever had one of those dreams where you can't run fast enough?

Try being in someone else's.

It was the noise. Not even a scream. There isn't a word for it in any language I know. Didn't even realise it was something that could come out of a person's mouth.

There was a world on fire and then there was a big sharp white nothing thousands of feet in the air and up there, I heard what it was like to break.

So I said something.

Here's one. If a tree—no. If a book falls, ha, if a book falls in a library and no one's around to hear it….did it happen?

Well?

Can you prove it?

Yomiko?

She never really made jokes, as far as I remember. Except the one about the paper and heaven.

I didn't get a response. But then, maybe I never even said it at all. I'm not much of a comedian either.

It's stupid, just stupid, stupid, stupid and I can tell you right now that I wouldn't even do it to a dog. So you might, maybe, call me cynical, even crabby, but I am author and I stick to my guns.

So I'll be damned if this is the end.

Pssst.

Do you believe in me?

Well, do you?