J+S B-sides.

"Did you ever wonder if things might have played out differently?" Jake asked Sam as she did exactly what he pictured her doing.

"What do you think?" she replied in the exact tone she was given. "Do I wonder if we might be interesting characters to use in vignettes that aren't part of the main canon?"

"If you think about it," they said in unison, "our relationship is much like that of the author and the character. Suppose I conceive of a pious monk who is celibate and abstains from all worldly pleasures. Let's call him Umberto.

"Let's wrap Umberto in a narrative. A theological debate at his abbey gets heated one evening. The abbott is struggling to maintain order. Suddenly one monk, **** beyond propriety, enters the dining hall completely nude.

"But which monk is it? We may have painted ourselves into a corner here. So many passionate and precise theological arguments that could never have been articulated by a drunk. Who has been quiet during your scene? There's the cellarer, the dour circuitor... ah, here we go! Umberto hasn't said much since the very beginning! He could be our drunkard.

"At this point the character begins to resist. 'I've never touched a drop in my life!' he says. You could pin this on the indolent abbott, or perhaps one of the many brothers who have been weak against the temptation of Onan, but not Umberto!'

"Of course, we can make him get drunk anyway, or poison his brothers, or set the abbey on fire. But the readers know, and we know, and Umberto knows that we cheated. Every blonde coed that tiptoes toward the door in a horror movie, every villain who has a miraculous change of heart and lets the hero go free- they all resist mischaracterisation."

"If there is some godlike 'author' who's just making us spout lines regardless of how clunky they sound in our mouths..." Jake trailed off.

"... then this was extremely self-indulgent," Sam finished.