I am most sorry if somebody was expecting an update and was disappointed. I moved, got a new computer and there were lots of examinations that took up all of my time, with the result that I forgot all about this story until, well, now. This was written in a hurry and without the help of a betareader, but I felt I'd never finish this if I didn't update now. Forgive this and the silliness, if it is too pronounced.
Anyway, the phantom does not belong to me.
He had gained in importance what he had lost in sanity, the milkman suspected. This exchange pleased him tremendously, as he walked down the dark street with the prince of Denmark by his side.
"So, this world is not mine, and I am nought but a shadow, a fiction, here? And at the end of my play I will actually finish off most of the cast, including my girlfriend, her brother, my uncle and my mother?"
"That sums it up nicely, I'd say." the milkman replied and adjusted his hat.
"Curious."
The milkman felt that this allegedly mad royal dane was showing less outrage at this than he might have, and that his speech was becoming less refined and old-fashioned every second. "Your uncle was kind of responsible for your mother's death. And your brother-not-quite-yet-in-law forgave you most graciously, because he had really plotted to kill you. Well, but sorry anyway, must have been a great loss. Do you want to soliloquize? I would understand. I could turn around, you know, so that you feel less self-conscious."
"No thank you."
"Sure?" he probed hopefully.
"No, thank you."
They had almost reached the Postman's house, where a commotion seemed to have taken place. A car had crashed into the garage, and there was blood on the front porch. The milkman was considering this day as the most exciting and rewarding of his whole career. If only his wife had not sulkingly left to visit her best friend when he offered the carefully prepared duck to their royal guest. The royality of whom she was, by the way, loath to admit. He would make it up to her, somehow, but for now he was snared in the dense web of history and fiction, he was in the middle of something big. Life was good.
Yet there was enough decency on guard to tell him that he ought to be worried about poor Mr. Postman.
"Poor Mr. Postman" he said to Hamlet. „whatever might have happened here?"
"I know not, nor do I care, we have more urgent things to discuss."
"Like what?"
"Like the future of fiction, good Horatio. Have the kindness to shut up and follow me."
*************
Meanwhile the commotion continued inside...
*************
„" will not." a voice boomed.
"Yes you will, Erik, and there's an end to it." a decisive female voice answered.
"No need..." interjected Mr. Postman. The scene was quite frightening. There was blood on his face and he had trouble focusing on the pair he had thus adressed, the phantom and his girlfriend, both terribly upset. There were also the French madames who were busy restoring their leader, Mrs. Postman, still in her queenly attire, to life, by attacking her with handkerchiefs and every now and then a little shriek. There was more blood on the gowns of the ladies. All in all a very gory scene, that Mr. Postman acknowledged as professionally interesting if a little unlikely.
"I have nothing to apologize for." The phantom interrupted these observations. "He upset you."
"No, he didn't. And you tried to strangle him!"
"Didn't."
"Did!" the maddened matrons insisted simultaneosly.
"His lips are blue Erik, and now say sorry, for it is his cellar we are currently living in. And you ruined his wife's laundry!" Christine cried, tears in her eyes.
"Laundry? This man is bleeding, can't you see that? There's blood all over the place, can't somebody call a doctor?" This was said by his psychologist, who currently served as his pillow, Harry noted. The shock inflicted upon him by the impact of the glass had done him a world of good. He felt terrible all in all, but it was a very different kind of terrible to what he had felt before. And it almost seemed as if there was a good reason for a not-too-expensive divorce hidden somewhere in the proceedings, although he had for the moment only a dim recollection of what was going on.
"That wasn't me!"
„No, it was my mother." a calm voice made itself heard. Emilia had been standing at the top of the stairs, where the little party had not been able to see her. Now that was a good reason, Harry thought. And he was so going to convince the judge to let Emilia live with him, she really was a girl to keep her head in an emergency.
"See?" The phantom muttered. "And it is not that much blood, head wounds tend to be a bit messy."
"Wait a minute, are those words?"
Harry took a moment to wonder what they were talking about, but his psychologist seemed to have worked it out alright.
"Now this is a surprise" she remarked, suddenly much less worried, which he was not shure he could appreciate, but with intense interest. "I would not have thought it possible that anyone could really be made out of words! It is a common enough phenomenon, I dare say, but I have not taken it quite as literally." She looked at him closely, an urge which seemed to be contagious, for even the moody matrons stopped their wailing to take an interest in his head wound. There was a moment of stunned silence, then his wife, who had seemingly recovered from her fainting fit said with some decision: "If there's anything useful flowing out of him, I get half of the shares when it gets published." The psychologist mustered her with some disgust, but nonetheless grabbed a vase from the sideboard behind her and held it to Mr. Postman's head. He in the meantime had some trouble keeping track of the conversation. Emilia took pity of him.
"Well, dad, there are words coming out of your head, just look. At first they were quite red, but now they look more like the common printed variety." she observed.
"And they make sense, too!" the psychologist interrupted excidedly, peering into the vase.
"Now that's something I can hardly believe!" his wife said, but nonetheless looked closely at the pseudo-blood on her dress.
"So, what do I say?" Harry inquired, nettled that his vision was too blurred to see for himself.
Everyone was too engrossed in his literary output to pay him any attention.
"This is good, this is really good!" the psychologist exclaimed suddenly. "I'll be damned if this is not going to be a bestseller!"
