Insolitis

II

As Jay continued to read the letter from his parent’s company, he grew more and more confused. Insolitis Inc. is having a Family Day next week? Jay’s eyebrow shot up. In the ten years that his parents have been working at Insolitis Inc., there has never been any type of social gathering of any kind. No Christmas parties, no employee picnics, nothing that wasn’t business. However, as Jay read through the letter full of smiley faces and exclamation marks, he realized that this was definitely not business, and it definitely didn’t make sense.

Insolitis employed practically everyone in the town, and some say that the corporation was trying to take control of the town. And maybe that was why there’s going to be a Family Day. If everyone who worked at Insolitis and their families were all in the building, the whole town would be located in the big, dark, mysterious, unusual building. And who is to say what would happen then?  

- - -

                The next week, Jay found himself in a collared shirt and tie, next to his parents on the 11th floor of the Insolitis building. His parents kept introducing him to co-workers and their families. To be honest, Jay was getting extremely sick of it all. I need to catch a breath somewhere, he thought to himself.

Walking with his parents to the table of food at the front of the room, Jay noticed a sign for the restrooms. He let his parents know where he was going and then walked off to isolate himself from all the "hellos” and forced "nice to meet yous.”

Jay left the room and walked into the hallway towards the bathroom. "Psst." Jay swirled around to see a young woman crouched next to a garbage can, with her back pressed against the wall as if she didn't want to be seen by anyone in the conference room decorated for Family Day. "You're Jay. Come with me,” she said. Despite the threatening nature of these words, the woman spoke them kindly. Jay felt obliged to listen to her, and as she walked off, close to the wall, he followed her.

As she led Jay away from the Family Day room, she started talking, but quietly as if she didn't want to be noticed. "My name's Kathy. And you, Jay, are probably pretty confused right about now as to what's happening." As Jay nodded, she went on. "Everyone in that room, everyone you've ever met in your life, everyone you've ever seen walking down the street; all those people are part of a story. You and me. We're all part of a story." Kathy glanced over at Jay, who was biting his lip. She laughed. "Sorry, that probably made you even more confused. I'll try to explain a little more.”

Kathy went on. "There's another world somewhere, where a girl not too much younger than you writes stories. She loves writing. When she's a kid, she goes to her school library and writes. When she's older, she's a very successful author and she sits in the library in her house and writes. She lives to write."

"You talk almost as if she can change from being a kid to being older. How's that possible? And what does any of this have to do with me?" Jay's lip was starting to hurt.

"Somewhere, she's living a life in the proper order, and she can't 'change from being a kid to being older'. However, we are living one of her stories, and from our perspective she's always our author, at any time in her life. We can see her from multiple different times in her life. But at all those times, she's still our author."

“Let me guess. My parents set you up to do this. I know because you’re not making sense. You’re saying that I am a character in a little girl’s story. And that’s impossible. Stories are just words written on paper. The characters don’t actually live. You’re playing some kind of a joke, I’m sure of it.” Jay was starting to get angry that anyone would think he would actually believe all this.

“You are so much like Leann. She always assumes that someone is playing a joke on her, too. But no one ever does. In fact, no one ever seems to pay any attention to her. She doesn’t have many friends. The only people who come close are people from the internet who critique her work and offer feedback. Well, besides her characters. Her characters are the best friends she could ever have.”