The Write-Me-Back Falls: Episode 2

Previously on Cum Tacent Clament…

“We’ll always have Paris!” yelled Oxfam Girl as she vanished into the blackness. I don’t think I ever wrote about her in Paris, but that’s women for you.

“That wasn’t very sporting,” I said indignantly.

“Who said I was going to play fair?” asked the woman in black, as with a nonchalant flick of her head she slipped back her hood revealing…

And now, the next thrilling instalment of Write-Me-Back Falls:

“Oxfam Girl?’ I spluttered in surprise.
“Of course it’s me,” said the woman in black, who did indeed appear to somehow be Oxfam Girl. “Don’t you ever read your own blog? You must have figured out by now that any time a mysterious unknown woman shows up, it always ends up being me.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “But I just… Did you just push yourself off a cliff?”
“I did,” she said cheekily, “but you must have known I’d be back. You can’t push someone off the Write-Me-Back falls in the middle of a thunderstorm and expect that she’s not coming back.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I conceded, “it’s just that normally people wait until after they’ve disappeared before they reappear. And they don’t make a habit of paradoxically making themselves disappear in the first place.”

“Quite right,” said an indignant voice behind me, with the sort of tone that would make people who like the sound of finger nails on black boards wince. Just my luck. What was she doing here?

“Biscuit Lady. How lovely to see you again,” I said, in my most gentlemanly voice.
“That’s Ms Lady to you, young man,” sniffed BL, “and how dare you let me catch you out here with a poor defenceless young lady in the middle of a thunder storm. For shame!”
“What do you mean defenceless?” I asked. “Last time I saw her, she was having a light sabre duel with you on my front lawn. And she was winning.”
“Silence!” demanded Biscuit Lady.
“I don’t think that encounter was actually real,” added Oxfam Girl unhelpfully.
“Shut up both of you,” I snapped. “This is my blog! I’ll be the one who decides what’s real and what isn’t, thank you very much.”
“My dear boy,” said Algernon Moncrieff, who had materialised beside me, “You’re currently standing on top of Write-Me-Back Falls in the middle of a storm, having an argument with an imaginary girlfriend and an anthropomorphic projection of out-dated societal expectations. And, might I add, you’re losing. Are you sure you’re in the best position to be making reality judgements?” I turned around to punch him as hard as I could, but he had already disappeared. Besides, he did have a point.

“Okay, fine,” I said, since doing anything other than agreeing with them probably wasn’t going to get me anywhere. “If you’re both here and ganging up on me, it’s obvious that something fairly heavy duty is going on my subconscious. What’s on your minds?”
“It’s your mind, not ours,” sniffed Biscuit Lady. Trust her to expect me to take responsibility for everything.
“And how do you know you’re not just wasting time while you’re supposed to be writing NaNoWriMo?” asked Oxfam Girl, who was developing a nasty habit of missing the point completely.
“Stop changing the subject and tell me what’s wrong,” I yelled.
“We can’t,” explained OG in a voice that implied I was missing something flagrantly obvious, “We’re not all here yet.”
“Oh good grief,” I groaned. “Who else could we possibly be waiting for?”

“For me, of course,” said a voice behind me. And since I was standing with my back to the cliff edge, that was a little disconcerting. I turned around slowly and realised that it couldn’t possibly have been anyone else.

“Nice of you to join us,” I said to…



TO BE CONTINUED...