Continued later

From the diaries of Epi Fluffin Pooh



John and Michael headed to Reddy’s to discuss their fantasies. Reddy did not live in Cape Town, it was more fruitful to be gay in Bombay. His sexual orientation had nothing to do with the fantasies of John and Michael – both authors in the fantasy genre. He merely wanted to solve his problem. Reddy, had a problem. He did not know whether to recommend John or Michael to his friends. By the way, none of his friends in Bombay were gay. His friends were fanatics of fantasies, but were mindless, and did not know which was the better of the two. This interesting story, will be related here for those who are as curious.


So John and Michael met up at Reddy’s house. He stroked a magic lantern, and a genie popped up. The genie said “who do you want to be locked up in a room with?” Reddy said “I wish to meet John and Michael at once”. So John and Michael, obviously, had to meet Reddy. This made Reddy feel that genies were like the people from the make-a-wish foundation. He ignored this feeling of his, and wished, very strongly indeed, to meet John and Michael. So that is how, John and Michael met up at Reddy’s house. It must be noted here, for the purpose of the story, that John and Michael were on first name terms with Reddy, because all of them were figments of the reader’s imagination.


John was seated on the right, Michael was seated on the left, but Reddy. Was surprisingly enough, not in the centre. He was moving around, looking for something. I was therefore confusing about who was to the left or right, so let us just follow convention. John was to the right, Michael was to the right, and they were having a debate because they were perfectly happy and straight people having completely different fantasies, and therefore, they were likely to argue with each other over their beliefs.


John said you Michael, are disgusting. I do not think, that you believe in what you write. You are a person who has fallen in a trap of your own design. You strive to rise above those planes you write about, but have lost track of realism. You deceive people into believing they are reading the truth. You might choose to do this hoping that their beliefs will help them get the message of the book better, but you ignore those minds that will easily be influenced by you into believing your reality… and letting young minds stray is not a noble thing to do”
Michael found it wise to come up with a retort “you speak as if your fantasies are any less hypnotizing than mine are… your fantasies are brief, short lived, they take too much time to establish themselves, you have a large word count and yet you represent so little of anything in your works. Your works have no content, no meaning. They create nothing but short lived bursts of euphoria, it is a vague and dirty form of entertainment, prostituting the very form of literature that is its syntax, it is incoherent, and incongruent, it is a trip into the incomprehensible. It is escapist. The reader tries to escape his reality into a world where every allegorical reference comes alive into a concrete reality… and what are these allegorical references? Nothing, your works are even devoid of allegorical references… you have yourself claimed that you do not like anything with allegorical references, and therefore, the tales of fantasy that you tell are unnecessarily over glorified. They have nothing in them, they are empty and void of any true content. They let the reader indulge in comforting and deadly philosophies of nobility, and of heritage, and of war and racism. And your works are so empty, that you go ahead and corrupt the noblest of people to fall for heritage, the noblest of gods to fall to war, and the noblest of races to fall to racism. Your works are paradoxical and meaningless. They have no real emotions or real feelings. They are merely delusional. That is the horrific show you are putting up: you are merely satisfying an antediluvian human need to be delusional. Even their very production defies the old fashioned ideas that it suggest. This is bad literature.”



And John said “I do not question you on the grounds of literature, but on the grounds of real, human emotions. It is not psychologically advisable to intensify an experience, particularly in the fantasy genre, because that would corrupt the minds of the readers far more than an escapist fantasy story would do. And escapist fantasies are clean, they are distinct from the real life, they are something unattainable, and this is precisely what makes them easier to distinguish from real life. Your fantasy works worse magic on the people. It satisfies every single antediluvian human need, even those that are delusional. It slowly takes over their minds and haunts them, makes them paranoid, and resent the real world. It makes them aware of their own shame, their own bitterness, and their own fallacies. It makes them fall into that deep well of self pity, where they grope about in the darkness of their own sub consciousness. Your kind of literature is so debased, that a decent censor would leave nothing to be read.”



And Michael said “have you seen it! You have stopped being noble and grand already, you have realized that realism is the better concept, one that needs to be embraced”



And John said “This, is an effort, to make you understand exactly what I am talking about. You have managed, to capture into your reality, even a person like me, who is guilty of believing every single thing you accuse me with”



And Michael understood his flaw. He had lost. Or had he? He knew what he needed to do, He fell to his knees, cried out “Look at this awful drama!” and pretended to cry.



And John said “Come on Michael, be a man, stand up straight now…”



And Michael cried “well, you try being a human then”



There was a Flash. Suddenly, both Michael and John woke up in their own separate beds. They were happy. They had had nice dreams. They were inspired to write some fiction.



Reddy was done going round and round the room. He had found his way out. He had found a key. And the key was a word. A word he used to banish his demons. He looked at John, he looked at Michael, and he said “but you are both my fantasies! You do not exist. I refuse to believe in your existence”. Suddenly, there was a flash. Both Michael and John disappeared.



Reddy looked around and paused for a second. He wondered what he was doing. He smoked a magic joint, and a genie popped up.