Wild Fiction

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Rebecca smiled at him. ‘How long have you been asleep for?’ she asked pulling his arm gently and leading him away from Sebastian’s coffin.
‘It’s hard to say. Have you ever read the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis?’
She nodded vigorously. ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of my favourites,’ she said.
‘Well you know how time in the real world passed by in minutes while time in Narnia passed by in years?’ James paused and Rebecca nodded again. ‘The same thing happens here. He creates us in one story. If it doesn’t work, he dumps us down here. He leaves us until another story comes along that he needs us for. He fishes us out and uses us again. When we wake up it’s as if it was just yesterday that we were last awake and yet it could be years later. Judging by how yellow and faded my name label is, compared to yours, I'd say that I’ve been here for quite a while. I’m happy he’s using me again. I’m ready to do my job as a three-dimensional character if he’ll just bloody develop me.’
Rebecca snorted at him. ‘You have it all wrong. He’s brainwashed you with his propaganda. He may have created you but it’s your performance in this book that’s going to make him. He’s as nothing without us, as we are without him. He needs our co-operation and complicity to make him famous.’
She paused and looked James directly in the eyes. ‘He’s not a good writer. Do you know what he tried to call me when he created me?’
‘Not Rebecca?’ James asked casting his eyes down to the label on her box.
‘No,’ she said straightening herself up. ‘He tried to call me Sherry. Do I look like a bloody Sherry to you?’
James laughed and shook his head.
‘I told him what he could do with his Sherry,’ Rebecca said and pulled her hair back. She slipped a red scrunchie from her wrist and doubled it around the ponytail she had just formed.
James stopped smiling and dropped his eyes to the ground before looking at Rebecca again. ‘How did you make him change your name?’ he asked.
‘I told him flat out. I said: “If you want any help from me in writing this book you’re going to have to listen to what I say and do as I say.” Well, that’s not exactly what I said, but that’s what I meant to say and it looks like he understood,’ she said pointing at the label on her box.

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