We are not alone.

The other day, I had the idea to try writing a snippet where my main character and I kept breaking the fourth wall by talking to each other.    I am sure you have heard about the fourth wall.  It is the imaginary "fourth" wall in front of an audience whether it is for a play, a television show, or in this case, the written word.  Hmm.  Now I am breaking the fourth wall again, but this time it is with you.

Then,  just after I completed my first draft, Jix announced the prompt for July 3rd as, "We are not alone."  So my story became a prompt response, instead of a stand alone snippet.

Thanks to Vivian for editing (and re-editing).  However, since I went back and added more after editing, all mistakes are and always will be, my own.

Edited and re-posted on 06/07/2014 to fix errors in verb tense.

Hello.  My name is GenE and I live in the real world, not the world of fiction which includes Mart and Trixie Belden.  I am having fun right now because I am  pestering Mart to tell us about the birthday cake Moms made for his fifteenth birthday last week.

Mart is currently pacing the living room. I have him so upset, he isn’t even using very many of the thousand dollar words for which he is so infamous.  

At fifteen years of age, he is confident in his demeanor, but he would much rather have discourse with his girlfriend, Diana, than by breaking the fourth wall to talk to me, Bonnie, or Chey.  He hates to say it, but he is uncomfortable with the thought of admitting, ‘we are not alone.’

“GenE, you can’t let Chey in on this story.  All those J words that she wrote the other day. What is she trying to do?  You do realize, don’t you, that she had 68 words that began with the letter J?   I mean, after all, thanks to Bonnie’s habit of having me spout all those multisyllable words,  I have a reputation to protect.   My lexicon is what I am all about, whether it is with or without Bonnie’s help.”

I demand, “People want to know about how you reacted to that birthday cake.  Leave the wall alone, and tell us about your birthday!”

“Oh, all right.”

Mart turns to Trixie who is looking at him with great confusion.  “Mart, are you okay?  Who in the heck are you talking to?”

I watch Mart shrug.  Then he turns to me and says,  “If Trixie can’t see the wall,  then it isn’t an idea that can be easily explained.  It’s more than invisibility or ghosts or aliens. It’s like talking to another, um, another space time continuum or something.  Isn’t it bad enough that the jixers had that poll about the time traveler survey? This fourth wall stuff seems like it would be as bad as traveling back and forth in time.”

“Trixie, what on earth gave you the idea to have everyone make a list of words  that had fifteen letters?  And, then, to have Moms print all those words on my birthday cake?!  It’s bad enough I have the two individual reputations of having an insatiable appetite and being a blowhard wordsmith but to have….”

I call out to Mart from the ether.  “Sorry, Mart, but I don’t think that you would use the words blowhard wordsmith.  That is something that Trixie would say.  You’re famous for your words, now use them.”  

Mart sends me a sour look and says, “I can’t!  You have me too upset.”  He turns back to Trixie and tries again.  “Everybody is always complaining about my being a skilled user of words.  In fact”.  Here, Mart glares again at the fourth wall, “someone, I don’t remember who,  recently used you to call me a blowhard.  No, I’m wrong.  They had you call me a windbag.”

Trixie sputters.  “Mart, you are really acting weird.  Who used me to call you a windbag?”

“Oh, never mind.”  Mart is so annoyed he pulls his hair.  “Let’s get back to the subject.  It was bad enough when Dad said he hoped that, finally, Moms had baked a cake that would satisfy all my sustenance requirements.  But then I had to prove that I knew the definition of acknowledgement, cardiopulmonary, contemporaneous, entrepreneurial, extracurricular. individualistic, lexicographical, misapprehension, neoconservative, parliamentarian, noncommunicable, prognosticators, totalitarianism, straightforward, and unsportsmanlike.  

“The only good thing to come out of this fit of merriment is that Moms acknowledged it was pointless for Brian, Jim, and Dan to try and give me the traditional birthday spanking.  Instead I had to find the word that represented ‘one to grow on.’ Thank goodness, even as much as you dislike math, that with your own usual discourteousness,  you solved the mystery for me.  Otherwise, we might still be waiting to eat cake.”

Trixie grins. “Wow,  a compliment.  I’m still not sure that you’re acting right.  You’re usually talking everybody else’s ear off, not talking to yourself.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.   But give me some time, and I will solve this mystery, too.”

Mart exhales in frustration.  “The only mystery left to solve here, is why on earth you gave me a dictionary that weighs as much as a 25 pound sack of flour. Couldn’t you have just downloaded a dictionary app?

“Dad always says he told Moms that she would rue the day she taught me about words, definitions, and homophones.  

“But I think I am the one  who is beginning to wish that this really will all turn out to be just a figment of someone’s imagination.”

Updated 08/12/2015

Vivian, Chey and Bonnie are fan fiction authors on jixemitri.net which is a message board about all things Trixie.

Jixers: other participants on the above named message board. There was a discussion about time-travel shortly before this story was written. There was also a reference to Mart being a blow-hard or a windbag. Sorry, I don't remember more to give proper credit.