The Science of Imagination

(It's not always the boys who have trouble with the character/author complexities)

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"We have been over this time and time again," Kate reminded them sternly. "You do not come prancing into my house unannounced."

"You do realize Kate, that we don't ever come here unannounced?" Heyes argued. "A certain would be Great American Novelist generally forms some vague but lurid thought, usually involving the Kid, somewhere in the back of her subconscious, and presto, here we are."

"You're blaming me for your blatant lack of indiscretion?"

"If the words tell the story, then yep," Heyes said boldly.

"Well then maybe I'll just delete the story," Kate replied, her finger hovering over the delete button as she called the outlaw's bluff.

"Now wait a minute both of you," Kid piped up. "Arguing about how and why we show up her ain't gonna get us nowhere."

Kate's angry glare turned to the handsome outlaw. "Just because you come across one of those rare sheriffs or marshals that actually reads the wanted posters that come across his desk, and recognizes the two of you by your descriptions, does not mean you can go so far as to break the time/space barrier to escape his clutches."

Kid and Heyes stared at Kate with blank expressions, both having no idea whatsoever, what she was talking about.

"What?" Heyes finally asked.

Kate sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't hold you responsible for your ignorance of scientific fact, when those facts weren't even a fathomable concept in your era."

Kid and Heyes looked at each other, but their expressions had not changed.

"Uh?" Kid asked.

"I will concede the possibility that your coming here might have something to do with... my subconscious thinking," she mumbled. "But that still makes me in no way responsible for you showing up here unannounced," she argued.

Still dumbfounded, Kid just scratched his head.

"It make you one hundred percent responsible," Heyes replied, his voice raising a full decibel from sheer frustration.

"Alright, let's look at this rationally," Kate replied. "If that's true and I am in full control of your whereabouts simply by imagining you here in my house, then by simple logic I am also responsible for your leaving, simply by blocking all thoughts of the two of you from my consciousness," she declared triumphantly.

Kate's feeling of superiority quickly melted away when Heyes responded by shaking his head and laughing out loud.

"What's so funny?' Kate asked.

"Listen to yourself, Kate. You just got through saying not ten minutes ago that me and Kid show up here as a result of your subconscious thoughts. You can't control subconscious thoughts. Someone who claims to be so well informed on scientific study ought to know that."

Kate could feel her frustration bubbling beneath the surface. The very fact that two, or at least one fictitious outlaw could outwit her in a scientific field that was not even hypothesized in his day was not only insulting to her intellect, but to her writing skills as well. She had to come up with another approach, and fast.

Almost immediately a smile appeared on Kate's face. "Kid, you know I have always thought of you as the quiet, intellectual type," she said in the most sultry voice she could muster, while her hazel eyes narrowed seductively.

"Watch out, Kid. Here it comes," Heyes warned his partner.

Kid's hand hovered over his gun and his own eyes narrowed as his gunslinger instincts surfaced. "I'm on to her, Heyes. Not even the offer of a warm bubble bath will sway me," Kid promised his partner. "If she thinks she can put a wedge in our loyalty, well I guess she just ain't the writer she thinks she is."

Seeing that this new approach was not going to work, Kate crossed her arms and sneered at the two outlaws. "I am so disappointed in you, Kid. I honestly thought you and I shared a special friendship," she told him, using her feminine charms to layer on some guilt.

"Oh we do, Kate. We do share a special friendship. It's based on my fear of you and your typewriter thing," Kid replied.

"Heyes laughed. "That's a good one, Kid."

"And a hundred percent true," Kid mumbled.

Kate stared at them both in disbelief. Then suddenly she caught a whiff of alcohol in the air. She walked up to one and then the other and, standing inches from their faces, she took a sniff.

"The two of you are cold stone drunk," she exclaimed. "Someone out there is writing a story and has the two of you drunk, and for some reason that writer took a break, leaving the two of you sauced to the gills with nothing by idle time on your hands. So you decided it would be fun to show up here and taunt me!"

Once again the two outlaws looked at each other with complete confusion written all over their faces.

"Kate, when was the last time you had any sleep?" Heyes asked.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Look at that typewriter screen," Heyes told her. "Every word the three of us have spoken is right there on that screen."

"Cause you typed it," Kid added.

"You're always complaining about having to explain this fantasy verses reality jargon to us, but Kate, you just might be slipping into the rabbit hole yourself."

Kate eyed them both skeptically as she slowly turned her head to the computer screen and read what she had just typed. Kate's eyes widened and she gasped. "Oh my God, you're right," she said in a dazed whisper.

"I think a lack of sleep tends to allow the subconscious to mingle with the conscious and puts you in a sort of limbo state," Kid explained, then turned to his partner with a look of great concern. "How the hell would I know all that?" he asked.

Heyes shook his head. "This is getting creepy."

"No, no, it's not creepy and I can fix this," Kate said nervously.

"How?" Kid asked.

"I... I... I can delete this whole conversation so it's like it never happened."

"Kate, you can retrieve lost or deleted work, so you ain't really eliminating it," Kid reminded her, then again turned to his partner with a look bordering on terror in his eyes. "Heyes, how do I know this!"

"Simple, Kate's subconscious mind in action. Maybe we should just leave, Kid, while the getting is good."

"You'd just leave Kate in a dilemma like this? How often has she ever just left us in a limbo state like that?"

"Judging by her computer files of unfinished stories, I'd say forty-thee times," Heyes replied.

"Forty three times? Well that does it. I'm with you, let's go."

"Wait!" Kate exclaimed. "You can't just leave me like this. How would that look to the readers?"

"That's what outlaws do, Kate. When the going gets tough, outlaws get going," Heyes told her.

"If you leave now, I swear I'll... I'll... I'll write a story where Kid loses his fast draw and Heyes becomes mute!"

"You wouldn't dare," Heyes said with a threateningly slow voice and menacing dark, narrowed eyes glaring at the frantic writer.

"Heyes, go a little easy on her. You can see that she's scared, and a man don't threaten a woman like that. I mean that's your Danny Bilson glare. Come on Heyes, lighten up," Kid told him.

Heyes held the glare a moment longer while Kid's words sunk in. He sighed heavily and took several steps back. "You're right, Kid. I'm sorry, Kate."

"Kate, it's almost morning. Maybe you ought to just shut of your typewriter and go to bed. This will look clearer after you've had some sleep," Kid told her.

Kate nodded and reached for the mouse to close the program and shut off the computer. "Maybe you're right," she said and turned to bid them both a good night.

But they were gone, vanished, out of sight... and suddenly Kate realized her only conscious thought was that of getting some sleep. She smiled and closed the computer as she stood to head up the stairs and crawl into bed.

"Maybe tonight I'll try counting chickens instead of bank heists and train robberies," she said with a smile.