My mind types in Palatino… Can I write about C.R.A.P for class?

"Prussia, I do not have IBS. I was up late last night doing paperwork, and yogurt wasn't good on my empty stomach."

"I'll forgive your surliness this time," I tell Germany. "It's so hard to find inner peace when you've got IBS. With an attitude like yours, of course you stay up late, and you eat chocolate for breakfast, and you don't shave for several weeks. That's why our neighbors had to wait two years for the permit to extend their rooftop by two centimeters."

"My armpit hair is not the German bureaucracy."

"Hey, I'm just the guy who cleans your shower drain."

"Our shower drain, might I remind you, until you can finance a new basement bathtub."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'manifest.'"

"Right then. I'll move all your sopping washcloths back downstairs, and you can manifest that new bathtub right after breakfast."

"Harsh!"

Germany won't have it. He sits down at the other end of the table and unwraps the Eszet Schnitten for his toast. Meanwhile, I fumble around for a little bit until I've manifested a decent banana milkshake. Not the best breakfast, but opportunities are best seized and not regretted. Schlurp-schlurping away, I change my pelican pajamas into a pair of khakis and a black polo with a loon on the breast pocket. Then I point to the basement door, and my mascara wand shoots like a spear up the stairs to start on my lashes.

"You know, staying up so late will make your health worse," I mutter. "You could have spent that fifteen minutes and thirty-six seconds in the bathroom this morning sleeping in instead. Then that extra fourteen minutes you factored in for the phone call with Italy could be entirely justified, along with the three whole minutes you're going to spend choosing a Dutch cheese to go with Brötchen this week."

"You've been reading my planner?"

"We all have things we do when we're bored."

"Like mocking a bureaucrat's bodily functions."

"Exactly, which is why—

"I factored in exactly twenty-eight minutes of 'Prussia's nonsense" on my schedule for today. If all things proceed as expected, you've actually made an improvement from last week. Down a full 6.2% and with 38% fewer instances where I'm dismembered."

"Fucking bureaucrat."

"Hey, I'm only the guy who had to stay up all night studying the Prussian economy when he was twelve."

"You were twenty-five, big baby," I grumble.

"Ah, so this is the game we're playing this morning. Perfect. I'll designate it."

He gets up from the table, chocolate toast finished in calculated bites. Then I watch as he tromps downstairs, only to return half a minute later with… my diary. My special diary. The one I'm actually "writing in" right now! Pushing up his reading glasses, Germany sits down again at the table and opens the plain black cover. It's the third volume I've bound thus far. I wanted to make an infinite book of pages, but the pocket dimensions are tricky, and book-binding reminds me of my monk days. Ach, those were great. I was the only one who could read and write for hundreds of kilometers, and Poland's scribes didn't want to tell him someone wrote "Here lives the smaller buttcheek of the PL Union" on his castle walls. He'd think they did it!

"I haven't actually checked in on you in a while," Germany says. "Usually your diary entries make even less sense than what you tell me verbally about your, what was it? C.R.A.P?"

My cheeks go all dusty rose. Sometimes I forget that Germany's supposed to be able to read these entries at any time, in order to better understand my new, ascended existence. Oh, why do I keep talking about the time I sewed his body parts back together and then Austria and Hungary helped with that dark ritual to bring dead flesh to life!? God, Germany, please don't ask about that! Even I don't know what the hell I was thinking! I was a different man back then! A lonely man who wanted a son…

"Why is an entire page in here just drawings of Hot Wheels cars?" Germany asks.

My eyes widen, and the floating eyebrow pencil almost pokes me. Hot Wheels? When did I even…

I get up and walk around to the other end of the table. Sure enough, there's a full two-page spread of the high-powered magical vehicles.

"Huh! I didn't even know my diary could do this!"

"Do what?"

"I don't write in here. See? That's why the font is immaculate ten-point Palatino instead of my smeary all-caps scrawl. Everything in this book is translated directly from my personal bubble of Anticanon into viewable content. It works for words, and it works for images, too!"

"You just think, and it gets written in here?"

"I don't even have to think. I just feel in the moment, and my unconscious mind narrates for me, which is a bit counterproductive, seeing as thoughts are far more productive than feelings. Heh. My conscious thoughts are usually along the lines of how awesome I am, so my diary probably says some more interesting things. I worked it so you might be able to feel what I'm feeling when you read."

"You use the word 'schlorp' way too much."

"I do like to schlorp a lot."

"So why the Hot Wheels?"

I take the diary from him and flip back to the open pages. They're even hot, just like the cars in question. The paper singes my fingers, and a current of hyper-waves shoot straight to my brain.

"Vibewaves," I tell Germany. "They give off 4-D vibewaves. The first Hot Wheels animated movie specifically was a conduit for L-particles, like John Mayer's first album and Matthew McConaughey's right hand. It's the thing I was telling you about with Austria, remember? Remember how I said Austria's from the 11th Dimension, and I can tell because of the way his molecules react to certain vibewaves?"

"Ah, right," he says, as if he's perfectly aware what I'm talking about. I'll have to make a full entry about vibewaves later, when the time is right.

"So what does it look like when you're writing in this diary, then? Do the words just appear by themselves when you 'feel' them?"

I crinkle my nose and feel the pages flipping between my thumbs. "That's an interesting question, actually. I've never actually seen words appear in here. I just consult this every so often to compare my life now to my life back when it was boring and edgy."

Sitting down next to him, I open the diary and flip through to the back. There's yesterday's entry, and then when I flip… the pages are empty.

"Hm… this is a strange enough situation to warrant an entry. Why isn't anything there?"

"The pages are stuck together," Germany says. He takes the last page of yesterday's entry and jams his thumbnail into the crease between it and the next page. The thickness splits the pages apart, but they suddenly suck around his thumb like Russia's pufferfish lips and begin schlurping his flesh down between their paper sheets.

My face goes back to its standard manila. I guess Germany's hopeful data won't apply to him this week. He might need me to grow him a new thumb. Ceesus chips, people are losing fingers left and right around here.

"PRUSSIA! THE BOOK IS EATING MY THUMB!" Germany shrieks. "GET IT OFF!"

I jump up and seize the book by the covers, pulling and wrenching as hard as I can, but his thumb stays stuck between the hungry pages, still glued together tightly except for where my brother's digit splits them. An eerie schlurpy-schlorpy noise issues from the hungry book, and I yank harder, showing my true nation strength. Germany nearly falls onto the table before I switch up my tactics.

I stroke the book's spine. No dice. It only sucks harder. I try ripping out the pages, but they're anchored in with the glue and stitching of an immortal nation who's keen on keeping his secrets.

Hey, my sword might be able to cut them out!

"Where'd you put my sword? Its magic could help!"

"It's in the silverware drawer with the other butter knives," Germany moans.

"Sword of Preußen! Come!"

The drawer shoots out of the cabinet, scattering silverware all over the floor. My sword floats up and shoots toward us. Before it meets my left hand, I twist my wrist, and it grows to its true form.

"You're going to slice my thumb off with that!"

"I'll be careful! Just quit your wiggling and stop screaming! Do you want Frau Froemming to call again?

I slam his hand on the table and draw my sword hand back, digging the blade into the binding and beginning to slice through the paper. The power of Prussia matches the power of Prussia, and the paper rips clean through. I cut until I reach Germany's thumb, and then, in one swift move, I wrench his whole hand down and slap his thumb with the flat of the blade. It falls out of the diary, a limp and purple mess.

"Ha! Not dismembered!" I screech with pride.

Germany groans. That's gonna take a whole hour to heal. I can tell.

"Why the hell did it bite down?"

I cock my head, picking up the severed two pages. On the inside are some surprisingly accurate details of… five minutes ago?"

"Woah… this describes me talking about your IBS just now! Amazing! Maybe it doesn't want me to see what's written until after it's written!"

"I don't have IBS" is all Germany can mumble.

"So that means, maybe, just maybe... "

I take my sword again and open the diary. Again, the previous page and the next blank page have stuck themselves together, concealing what my mind is feeding the magic book. I slip the blade in between the pages and carefully shimmy it down the middle until the pages separate, and the very present tense is

~N~

This is going to sound freaky, but the universe WOULD NOT let me write any more. It froze my muscles and foamed up my brain. Prussia is blindsighted to the translation of his Anticanon to physical text and its reflection in my Anticanon translation to subcanonic reality.

We really are cosmic soulmates. I bought some Lindor truffles so I could pretend he gave me them for Valentine's Day. I've already eaten several.

Yes, guest reviewer. The nations are losing fingers. Is that funny to you? Do you find the instability of space-time funny? Are you dying of laughter because the Void Hallways are clipping into standard continuity and interrupting the bread loaf that is aether? Are you reeling in ecstasy that the bubbles of nonexistence are schlurping up every last roll of Caron Simply Soft Paints until there are only 6 rolls left and I order them?

Updated by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net February 13th, 2021. Reposters cursed. Rip BJ Novak's socials.