The Narrator

19 - One Malarkey's Gone, The Other One Hates Me

Journal Entry

December 28th, 1:35 PM

This is mostly my fault. At least, that's what Alex said.

I get it, he's under a lot of stress... and I kind of fucked up royally... but it's mostly the stress's fault.

I have no idea what to do. Tolkien says she'll think of a plan, but judging from the way things have been going so far, I doubt it.

I totally blame myself for this. If I don't fix this, I'll definitely lose Alex forever.

I guess I should explain what happened...

Though I don't want to at all...

I ran inside, passing my abandoned crutches, and dumped my wet coat and shoes at the door. I heard excited voices from upstairs - and not the good kind of excited. The bad kind, you know... hysterical excitement.

I ran up the stairs and found a ladder leading to the attic in the same place as the adjacent semi. The ladder-stairs were down and the voices were coming from above. I suddenly became part-monkey and climbed the stairs in record time.

I knew the attic was too big to fit in a single semi. Apparently, the Authors were construction workers as well because they had evidently removed the wall dividing the attics of the semis, making two small attics into one large attic. It was pretty impressive, actually.

I'm avoiding the point...

Alex and the gang of Authors were surrounding Daniel's desk which had one of those Apple desktops - one of the ones with the weird stands... you get it. I'm a Windows man. I don't know how to use Apple products.

When they noticed me, everyone turned their heads in my direction. I heard Shakespeare's voice in my head. He wouldn't start without you.

"What's going on?" I asked out loud.

"Come an' see," Daniel said, waving me toward them. I rushed around the desk and Alex gave me an inquiring look and gestured to my leg. I waved him off. I didn't feel like explaining Shakespeare's Jesus-abilities just then.

The computer screen was black. I first thought the thing was off... until the monitor exploded with white noise.

"I was puttin' Travis' information into the archives when the screen went dark. Figured I'd broke it but then... You'll see. It's gonna play again."

We stood there, waiting for something - anything - to happen. All that happened was a black screen with the occasional burst of static.

"While we wait..." I muttered, "Can you explain to me why you were putting me into the... archives?"

"Your information," Tolkien explained. "There's an international database for Narrators and Authors. It used to be written but it's now mostly online. Authors all over the world use the archives and they're great for collaborative training. If you want to find someone at an equal skill level as you, you search the archives. Every Author to ever exist is in the archives."

"Uh, I don't think I want to be put in the archives... Besides, can't Cashews Against Almonds just hack you or something?"

No one even smiled at my CAA joke. I guess I was pretty nutty to think they would. I'm sorry, did I cashew off guard with that one? In a nutshell, I must pea-nuts to put this many puns at once.