Plain Jane in Thirteen Chapters
Plain Jane – Chapter One
London, England, Present Time
Suspended in a kaleidoscopic myriad of colour and shininess, Jane was floating happily, ensconced in a dream. Fool she was.
Not three hours ago had she cursed fan fiction and fan fiction did not take such insults lightly. As well as being hugely offended, fan fiction was a little upset and did not believe that Jane was justified in her feelings. It wasn't fan fiction's fault that Jane had been humiliated and fan fiction wasn't about to be ashamed of itself because of one little unemployed reader who had thought that she was superior to fan fiction because she knew what a preposition was.
Fan fiction thought about borrowing Dickens's Ghosts to show Jane the error of her ways, or trapping Jane in Davey Jones' Locker, or making her Snape's assistant for a year. That was the beauty of fan fiction, it didn't have to have any truly original ideas, just borrow someone else's and run with it and manipulate them for its own nefarious deeds. Mwah ha ha.
Fan fiction was unsure of how to punish Jane.
First fan fiction decided to confront her and to do that, fan fiction would have to bring Jane into its own realm. Which would be very painful but fan fiction was not too bothered about that.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" screamed Jane. She had suddenly woken up because her skin was burning, but she threw off her bedcovers and leapt out of bed and banged the light switch on and saw that she wasn't on fire. Her legs collapsed under her in paint... her skin was itching and it felt so hot, so very hot like molten lava was being poured onto her, she was in so much pain. Tears poured down her face but they were steaming! Steam was actually floating up! She pulled herself off the floor onto her desk, where she scorched the wood and looked into the mirror...she looked normal, if slightly freaked out.
The room, however, was not normal. Her framed picture, a copy of Holbein's The Ambassador's was melting, the glass was actually melting and dripping onto the floor...which was not a floor anymore but seemed to be a whirl pool that everything was melting into.
Bloody hell, thought Jane, her feet were starting to be pulled towards the whirlpool. The whirlpool was slowly twisting the burgundy carpet around and pulling into its depths. Jane's wardrobe shook and the large Edwardian wardrobe exploded, shards of wood flying everywhere and her clothes slowly descending into the dark abyss. Arms of shirts and legs of trousers were pulled into the whirlpool like strange flat invisible people.
Unfortunately, Jane had noted, the door was on the other side of the room from her and the whirlpool was getting larger and larger and the noise of it crunching up the wardrobe was drowning out her shouts for help. Her flatmates couldn't help her now, she was on her own.
Jane, it whispered. Jane.
Oh great, she thought as she pushed the desk into the gaping hole in the middle of the room for time, I've finally cracked it. The turquoise paint on her walls was now quickly running off the walls and Jane was covered in a thick sheen of sweat, her pyjamas sticking to her and her breathing heavy. She tried to edge around the side of the room, before the whirlpool engulfed the whole room, it was currently about six feet wide and her bed was tipping into it. She clambered back over her bed, trailing thick gooey turquoise paint and panting. She was going to reach the door, she was two feet away from it, and she was almost there...
The wooden floorboards, which were splitting around the whirlpool, were breaking all over the room, probably from the heat and lack of air. Jane's bare feet scrabbled about, splinters tearing at her thin pyjamas and piercing her skin, she felt hot bloody trickling down her calves and she desperately stretched out to the door, trying to grab the handle, her fingernails scraping the wood. But the whirlpool was too strong and the plank she was kneeling on was slowly falling down into the abyss...in a last ditch attempt she threw all her weight towards the door and grabbed onto the door handle.
Success! She ducked while the chandelier shattered and sent half melted glass everywhere and the electrical wires were sucked into the hole, sending sparks everywhere; one spark landing on the half of the bed that the whirlpool hadn't eaten yet and it went up in flame. Meanwhile, Jane was desperately trying to hold into the door handle, her hand sweaty and her strength failing her, she couldn't breathe, her chest was heaving...someone was banging on the door and shouting her name, they were trying to push the door open, but there was too many broken strips of wood pushing against the door for them to move it.
The whirlpool was whispering her name, hypnotically; Jane, Jane, Jane and she felt her fingers slipping off the door handle, one finger at a time until only the forefinger remained. She slipped from consciousness and slip helplessly into the whirlpool.
By the time Jane's flatmates had broken down the door, the entire room was black from the fire and all evidence of the whirlpool was gone, along with everything in her room.
In the Wonderous Realm of Fan Fiction
Jane was sore and between waking and sleeping, the odd half world where you notice some things around you but it doesn't seem to matter that much. There was a niggling feeling in the back of Jane's mind that something was very wrong, but she ignored it. Sleep now, worry later, she thought.
Jane, whispered a voice. Jane recognised that voice, who was it? It wasn't her Mum or her Dad...or her annoying flatmate, Jill, who always wanted to borrow her clothes, was it? Probably...pretend to be asleep. Mmmm.
Jane, it said. Wake up, Jane.
It was definitely familiar. Ex-boyfriend? No, what would he be doing in her room? Wait a minute, what was this thing doing in her room? This wasn't her room! Where was her bed!
In other words, Jane woke up with a start and sat up, stiffly and shivered. Blinking and wrapping her arms around herself for heat, she surveyed her surroundings. It was very white and cold, like the
Winter Tundra, except as she touched the ground she saw that it wasn't snow, it was a strange white power. She picked some up in her hand and sniffed it; it was caster sugar. She frowned, how weird. She looked up and the sky was white. Around her everything was white, cold and caster sugar. She stood up and brushed herself down, her pyjamas were blackened and in rags, which made her feel very vulnerable, cold and conspicuous among the almost blinding light.
Jane, it whispered again. She jumped.
"Who are you?" she asked, "And where?" she whispered in an undertone.
I am everywhere and nowhere, it answered.
"Okay," said Jane, confused. Was this strange contradictory presence God? Or the Devil? Or Bob?
I am fan fiction, it revealed majestically and proudly.
"Oh...Kay," replied Jane, her burrow furrowed and her arms crossed, but she wasn't angry, only confused.
I am FAN FICTION, it repeated.
"Yes, I heard you the first time," muttered Jane.
Aren't you at all impressed, asked fan fiction, that I have been personified? That I am...alive?
"I suppose," said Jane, "I should be. Maybe I will be later, I'm more impressed by how much caster sugar you've got here, it is amazing!"
Yes, fake snow is so expensive these days and I so wanted it to look like an empty wasteland and real snow would be so hard to maintain-wait! You haven't asked if I am corporeal yet! Don't you want to know?
"I just assumed you weren't, you did say you were everywhere and nowhere, "replied Jane, gazing at the caster sugar.
Ah. You are cleverer than the last infidel that I brought to the Caster Sugar Planes, complimented fan fiction. Do not eat the caster sugar!
Jane took her finger out of her mouth. "Sorry!"
Ahem, I shall tell you why you are here. You said you hated me. This is not acceptable. You hurt my feelings, said fan fiction sadly.
"Oh!" said Jane, guiltily, gazing at the sky. "I'm really sorry!"
Yes well, it's too late now, Jane Thomas. While I do appreciate your apology, which seems very heartfelt to me, you see I have a reputation to keep up and you must be punished.
"What sort of reputation?" asked Jane, rather sceptically. "As far as I know, you are socially unacceptable and the retreat of loser unpublished writers and stupid thirteen year old girls who are still hung up on their first crush and want it to last just a little bit longer and so use their limited knowledge of grammar to write a pathetic and saccharine story of true love." Jane stood there smugly. There was a silence.
You are extremely rude, Jane Thomas. But yes, you are right, unfortunately this is my current reputation, I should have said that I wish to change my reputation. I wish to be cool. One day I shall be.
"And you're going to do that by punishing me? That's logical!" cried Jane.
Now, now, don't get all agitated. I wish to be seen as cool. Too long have I skirted around the edges of popularity although I am worshipped by many.
"You're not a god, fan fiction."
And yet I have more followers than most religions, fan fiction said smugly. Jane harrumphed. I am fantastic.
"I hope that wasn't a pun," said Jane. "And stop blowing your own horn."
I am bloody brilliant, said fan fiction. I am available to all with or without an imagination. I allow young people to write, I encourage them to write! I am a stepping off platform for young writers! I am the realm of all possibilities!
"Yeah," said Jane, "But it's not original."
Jane, Jane, most ideas are not original! The world is old and people have been telling the same stories for centuries, there are only seven basic story plots. What makes them original is the telling, the original twists, the interesting little similes and metaphors, all the different motifs, the characterisation!
"Alright, I agree with you on that point, but you must admit that a lot of fan fiction stories out there are pretty terrible."
They are young, they are learning. You must let them have their learning curve, Jane. At any rate, the quality of the work is not my fault.
"Pah," said Jane.
And the best thing about me, continued fan fiction, is that I offer constructive criticism!
"No you don't!" argued Jane, "The fan fiction authors do that!"
Fan fiction harrumphed. Now you are just nit-picking, it said. The point is, I am wonderful and you insulted me because of your own little failings.
"My own little failings?" cried Jane, angrily. "Because of the fan fiction on my computer, I got fired!"
This is not my fault, said fan fiction.
"Yes it bloody well is!" she argued. "If I hadn't been reading fan fiction I would never have been fired!"
Ah, yes. Well there are two things I would like to mention. Firstly it is not my fault that you were reading me at work.
"Yes, it is. You're bloody addictive, like alcohol or crack cocaine and twice as bad for my mental health!"
Well, said fan fiction, I must admit that I am very flattered you view me in the same league as crack cocaine, it's ever so popular in London, but not particularly socially acceptable...but as for being compared to alcohol...gosh...I'm going red, I'm ever so glad you can't see me blushing, you've made my day!
"What! But these are bad things! Addictive drugs are horrible!"
Yes I suppose so, but is it alcohols fault that there are so many alcoholics? Or is crack cocaine to blame for junkies?
"In a word, yes!"
Ah, but it is their choice to partake in it and their choice to keep partaking in it and not crack cocaine's fault. It's their own inherent failings that make them unable to say no. Many people drink a little bit of alcohol and are not addicts.
"Yeah, but,"
And that brings me onto my second point. If you had told your boss that he couldn't fire you for reading fan fiction and admitted to reading fan fiction, then he wouldn't have been able to blame you for those awful pornography charges, would he?
"No, I guess not," said Jane, morosely.
He knew, however, that you were ashamed of your little hobby and did not want to be thought of as a "loser unpublished writers and stupid thirteen year old girls who are still hung up on their first crush", didn't he?
"Maybe," Jane whispered sulkily.
Are you, Jane Thomas, a loser unpublished writer and did you start reading fan fiction because you were still hung up on a crush?
"Maybe," whispered Jane, inaudibly.
Did you think people would judge you for it? Said fan fiction, kindly.
"They would! They wouldn't understand."
Have you ever thought, dearest Jane, fan fiction said genially, that it is un-cool to want to be cool?
"Yes," replied Jane, on the edge of tears. "It's the definition of cool not to care what people think. And I don't, really, I'm only superficially un-cool, I think, I mean, I don't judge people on stupid little things but I think that they will judge me."
And what is so bad about being judged? Don't you know yourself well enough to form your own opinion of yourself?
"Well, yes, but wait! This isn't a bloody therapy session! You're just trying to distract me by pretending to be kind! You sent a whirlpool and destroyed my house and you're going to punish me now!"
Yes I did send a whirlpool and it did destroy your room. I don't see why you look so annoyed; it was a horrible little room. I can see you're very impatient for your punishment, you odd little human. It will be sad to see you go; I've grown quite fond of you. However, needs must. Your task is to survive in whatever fandom I send you to for the next twelve months. It's all part of my harder, more sophisticated image. If you live, I'll send you back home. If not...well you'll be dead, so I wouldn't worry about it.
"WHAT?" screamed Jane, incensed. "Are you INSANE! You can't just drop me in a fandom! They don't bloody exist, for one-"
Ah, but as I said earlier, I am the realm of all possibilities. You must learn to listen, Jane.
"Please don't kill me, I'll do anything you want-"
I am going to send you into a story that you have read before, I think that is very kind of me, so that you will know the basics and-
"Why is it always me? I can't believe my life is so depressing-"
Are you listening to me Jane? Crying on the floor won't help you now. Just survive for twelve months and learn a little respect for me and you can go back to living your life.
"Okay, fine. As long as I don't have to melt into a whirlpool into the floor."
Don't be silly! I wouldn't want to damage the caster sugar.
Those were the last words Jane heard before she descended into darkness.
Two hours later, near a river somewhere in Middle Earth
Water was lapping at her toes and she felt contented. Oh this was a nice dream, she thought, much better than that awful dream with the caster sugar and the voice.
Someone was saying something. We've been through this before, something is talking to her, said a little part of her brain. Shut up, said a bigger part, let the girl sleep, she's had a stressful time of it lately. Yes, said a different part, if she wakes up, we might have to deal with it. Yes but what if it kills her, asked the little bit. Unlikely, said the bigger big. Oh good, it's stopped talking, said the different part, and it's walking away, good. Oh no, the little part said, it's coming back!
Someone through water on Jane's face.
"Ugggn," she moaned and blinked. Everything ached, now she was slowly moving towards being awake and her feet were wet...what had happened. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was sitting at the edge of a river, rocky villainous mountains in the background. Her eyebrows sky rocketed. This was not England, this was not Europe, this was not Caster Sugar Land...this was almost too real, the river was blue and frothy and the grass such a green...she could smell everything and it was so fresh and strong. The sun was rising in the blue sky and it was a glorious morning. Jane smiled and felt strangely happy. Then she realised her face was wet and wondered how that could have happened. She turned around and caught a whiff of something unclean, something that smelled of man, sweat and fur and was face to face with it's boot clad legs, she looked up and saw a bearded man staring back at her. He was wearing what looked like a tunic, was extremely dirty and was carrying a shield...at his waist hung a sword.
Oh my god, thought Jane. Her mouth opened and she stared back at him.
Well,
Well,
Well! What do you think? Review!