When the room went dark, she heard her name. "Jane." Jane didn’t move. "Jane?" the voice repeated. Jane continued snoring. "Dammit, I said Jane!" the voice shouted. Jane jolted up. She blinked through the darkness. "Who… who’s there?" "Never you mind." the voice said, low and sinister. "I know what you did." "What did I do?" Jane asked. "You know what you did." “I didn’t do what you think I did," Jane replied. "You see—right there, you know you did something. And now we know you know we know." "First, you said 'I.'&nbsp;Now you said we.&nbsp;Who is 'we'?" “Never we mind,” another voice added. “We saw what you did; and that’s that,” said a similar voice. “OK; sorry.&nbsp;I admit it.&nbsp;I did it.&nbsp;But I hate those candy corns and I just swapped a few for jelly beans when the kids weren’t looking" and then adding, after a pregnant pause,&nbsp;"OK, and took, maybe, a few of their Tootsie Rolls.” “That’s not what I am talking about," the voice hissed. “Oops! I'm sorry, we—I mean, we—we're talking about the other thing you did. Much worse. We.” “May I ask again? Who 'we' is?” “We is—we are The Editors." "The Editors?” Jane asked. “And we have a bone to pick with you.” From every corner of the room, tiny ghostly figures materialized as dark matter into light, as shadows fled to the corners of the room. Each editor, wielding a red pen and a laptop. The air grew suddenly cold, and somewhere beneath the bed came the faint, rhythmic scratch scratch scratch of invisible pens dragging across paper. They hovered over Jane, muttering: <ul><li>'Overexplains minor details as if the reader cannot follow.' Check.</li><li>'Uses repetitive adjectives and adverbs excessively.' Check.</li><li>'Adds unnecessary disclaimers or qualifiers in dialogue.' Check.</li><li>'Introduces absurdly specific, improbable scenarios.' Check.</li></ul> “You used ChatGPT to write this story,” the first voice said. Jane froze and said, "I… I did?" “So you did?” “No,” Jane said, “That sentence had a rising intonation. I said I did, but I meant, did I?” “Silence!” the voice said. “You dared… to outsource your creativity. You lazy mortal.” Jane reached for the nearest object—what she believed was an empty bottle of hand lotion she kept forgetting to discard—and waved it like a sword for defense. "Okay, okay! But listen, it works! It’s efficient! I can write a story about haunted houses, evil voices, and spooky editors who think I used Chat GPT (but I didn't because only a crazy person can write like this), and I’m a literary genius!" “Stop waving that dildo at us,” the voice said. Jane looked at her hand, and muttered, “Sorry, the room went dark when you said my name,” she said. The leader of the Editors floated closer. It wore a monocle, a tiny top hat, and looked like a cross between a computer science student who realized AI would take his job, and a literary agent asking for a novel that would make one weep, fall in love and snort espresso. “You dared… to use AI to write your tale?” it boomed. “You know the penalties.” Jane gulped. “Was that a question? It had that rising thing.” The ghost-snort-laugh that followed made her hairs stand on end. “No! And STFU. You… shall… be forced to… rewrite your story 3.1415926535 times, in pencil.” "But that is irrational!" Jane screamed. "See,” the first voice said, turning to another apparition, “this is what happens when the writer is a mathematician. Everything’s gotta be perfect," before turning to Jane to add, "OK, Three." Jane shrieked. “You can’t make me!” “Oh, we can,” said another Editor, tapping her laptop with ghostly fingers. “And we will. If you don’t, you will be forced to eat the Halloween candy corn.” Jane’s eyes went wide. “No! Not the candy corn!” “Especially the candy corn,” the monocle-wearing Editor said. “For your second punishment, you will write a sex scene about men, the way men write sex about women.” Jane blinked. “Wait… what?” “Now!” screamed the voice, “You will do it right now, so we can see you do not use Chat.” “Show us!” another voice shouted. Jane picked up her laptop and began: His chest, broad with pecs that could crack a walnut, and carved like Michelangelo’s David lounging in an MFFFFFFFF.&nbsp;His hair, streamlines flowing off a supersonic jet, strands shedding vortices from the tail fin, seemed to catch the candlelight like liquid gold of male desire dripping from the glans. His man chest heaved like a continental subduction, each inhale, a seismic event. Luminescent eyes that spoke of pain, truth and the moon, conquered in the stoic silence of washing the dishes (and not telling his wife he washed the dishes with that male-ego voice). Every movement he made was heroic and stoic—biceps bulging, hunger in his man-lips, dripping with male desire. His posterior, his tail fin—tight, sculpted, and screaming “slap me”—poised to rearrange the furniture. FFFFFFF. His heroic thighs pressed forward like sculpted pillars of masculine perfection toppling the Caryatid maidens of the Erechtheum: the alpha, arrived. His manhood pushing out with desire, leaking the man juice that stained his toga, as he whispered with man-desire, "Do I have your consent?" “You betcha” whispered Jane. Then… the inevitable: a trip over the rug. He landed on his back. His bulge, of course, slipped out, springing forth like a diving board defying physics, like that rising thing. The Editors floated closer, muttering: “Damn, women, you make ‘em big ones.” “I like ‘em big ones,” Jane answered. The Editors paused. Whispered among themselves. One floated over, peered at her laptop screen, and nodded. “Hmm… imaginative… acceptable.&nbsp;You have redeemed yourself. Though, a woman writer would have written mmm, mmm, mmm—but we can let that go.” "Thank you… thank you all. Now… what happens next?" The Editors hovered silently, as if preparing to deliver a sentence so horrifying it would shatter her sanity. Jane’s heart raced. “We have reduced our punishment,” said one. Then, one of the Editors floated forward and opened its laptop with a flourish. "We… we have also decided… that your final punishment will be: yes… for the rest of your nights. Every story you write will… make no sense.&nbsp;You will write horror with no attachment to reality. For your punishment—you will write horror, like Stephen King!" Jane fell backward into the spaghetti-twisted sheets, crying until tears ran down her face. "Oh my god… this is… the best Halloween ever!&nbsp;I’m gonna be rich," clearly misunderstanding. Suddenly—these things always happen suddenly—a pause. Silence. Jane blinked. Then slowly, she realized: the room was quiet. The candles had burned out. The laptop was closed. The Editors were gone. “Gotta think up some more punishment. Maybe… I am a brilliant writer,” she whispered to herself, surveying the jelly beans and tootsie rolls. She flipped off the light switch. The darkness was now peaceful, no voices, no ghostly Editors, no heroic men bouncing across the rug. Jane slid under her covers, hugging her pillow, and let out a contented sigh.&nbsp;And with that, she drifted off, dreaming of grammar ghosts dancing with candy corn as she made love to the David—who had asked for her consent.

The Arrival of the Editors

This story is a work of art. It is a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize (because if you-know-who thinks he deserves one, then so do I).

This story is a literary apocalypse wrapped in whatever candy corn goo they use to make those candies (who eats that shit), heroic men (like me), and editors floating in from the great beyond. It bends reality, defies physics, washes the dinner dishes without reminding my—oops! sorry, his—wife, and makes the reader laugh, cringe, cry, and fear—what else is there? Oh yes—scream, shout, faint, hyperventilate, and weep--all at the same time. (I am so fucking stoned right now because my wife is Norwegian, we took a sabbatical, moved to Norway, and as I watch my home country in the US descend into chaos—Kimmel, the Generals, the UN, the Bunny, a sledgehammer to the White House asking for 230 million???—I am ecstatic that I live in Norway, even though I am NYC right now visiting my mom. So if I lose, and let’s face it, probably will since apparently NO ONE is liking my story, well, I’ve still got Norway. And the fjords. And elk. And peace. And Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer. And trolls.) I don't remember where I used the first parenthesis in this paragraph.

Now, where was I?

The plot twists are so audacious in this story, they could start civil wars—or an election—and yes, an erection (like the one in my story)—and it’s a very, very large one; the characters are so compelling they may demand their own spin-off novels, miniseries, feature films, and theme parks; and the prose? My goodness! Let’s just say it’s genius that juggles candles, flamethrowers, and a black hole.

Wait, while I go kiss my reflection in the mirror, thank the universe, the multiverse and my verse.

OK, I’m back.

I forgot.

Oh yes!

This story existed in the firmament before I was born, in my mom’s pasta sauce. The story chose my brain as its vessel, whispered in the dead of night (because this stuff is illegal in Norway, and I’m here in NYC, so WTF; and my mom is making meatballs), and demanded perfection, chaos, and absolute, like, fabulosity in equal measure. It also insisted I eat a Tootsie Roll.

Heroic men bounce across rugs, editors float through shadows with laptops that glow—and yes, there’s a dildo. And a subtle hint of existential dread.

Reading it is not an experience; it is a revelation. It is truth. It is sublime. Marvel at my story, bow before it, weep in its brilliance, send offerings of jelly beans, tootsie rolls and take note: this masterpiece exists in the world because genius refuses to hide. Genius insists on making itself known, unapologetically, gloriously, and entirely. (Now where'd it go?)

But please note: I did not write this review.

Cuz' I did.  I reviwed my own story.  

And yes, the Nobel committee should probably start their engines.





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The Arrival of the Editors

Thomas

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The Arrival of the Editors

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