I am not amused

Prologue: Honestly/Honest-like/Whatever (damned thesaurus) How I Think out Stories in Three Acts

After the foul murder of my muse, mid-story last week, I cobbled together an escape for the pretty love interest but I left Blo Stalwart hanging by his fingertips over the alligators.

Whilst sprinkling blood on the waters.

And I never liked that pompous ass, anyway.

Act 1: Apres la Guerre AKA Guerrillas in the Missed

Except, next morning, who is pounding on my door by dawns early light?

Right. How could I have forgotten B. Stalwart, Private Eye? That was a series, well received, if lightly promoted, and underpaid.

“Dammit, G.” -he always refers to me initially –”One dead muse looks much like another!

“There is a plot device that the murdered woman – She is a She, Right? – was really a look-alike. What makes you, of all the poor slobs who can’t decide if they are a long winded epigramist or a short-story fiend who can’t parse a sentence, think that poor stiff in the alley was your muse.

“Did you, run to her, and lift her and sob into her dead eyes? Hug her, lift her and carry her? Staggering to a hospital hoping against hope? Scream that primordial angst crap? Or was it you called for a body bag and a dumpster?”

I reached under the table for my spare back button but paused when the shiny pistol was thrust into my face.

“Hell, G., If I was your muse, I’d a died alone a long time ago...” Blo muttered/spat/grunted.

That chrome plated automatic pistol had always been just a prop, always ready, ever-present retribution, yet never fired in anger but suddenly, today, right now, I was wishing I’d have armed Blo Stalwart with a worn-out revolver with a cylinder that keeps falling out past the broken linchpin or whatever, a rain of bullets falling out and bouncing off his shoes and all that. Bang! Bang! Bang! It really didn’t hurt like some authors wring the pain and fear and anguish/relief/comedy (damned thesaurus) out of a main character getting shot.

Where’s that fourth wall when I need one?

Act 2: Enter the Muse AKA The Muse is Luse

“Not nearly enough pain, you bastard,” spat a voice from my past. My dimming vision ... She leaned above me... “I thought you were dead/deceased/gone forever/unhappy... (damned thesaurus),” I mused, not used to seeing her in the flesh. Strike ’in the flesh.’ Incarnating from her paper-bound/imaginary/hypothetical (damned thesaurus) life.”

But, her eye winking above her extended finger, she linked her arm in his arm and led him away whispering, “Who could believe you’d surprise him with a tired plot device like that? And we lived happily forever after.” (Fade to black)

“THEE END, sucker,” she whispered.

Act 3: I’ll give you plot devices, sweetie AKA The lame post-corporeal/coital/come-on-get-realness

Paper bullets? Mostly the noise and the shock of the gunfire ... but, still, paper bullets? Oh, and the humiliation of a solid character turning on me. Two solid/soiled/so-so (damned thesaurus) characters ... See, I never trusted her anyways.

“THEE END, sucker,” she whispered.

Epilogue: Thee End, She Whispered AKA Sucker, Let’s Blo this Joint

“Pau. 30. That’s a wrap.” Right out of Jubal Harshaw’s lexicon (damned lexicon). “Next!”

“THEE END, sucker,” she whispered.

I am not amused.

“But I am, sucker,” she almost whispered. I can’t hear imaginary people/spirits/proto-AIs (damned thesaurus.)

“But I can, sucker,” she thought/posited/planted words in the writing creatures fore-brain. (Damned physical transcriber. I gotta go cloud.)