Pratalia, Gen Z, then arrives

Diderot

By Alba Pratalia
Scene 1
(Interior – A white void. Time is irrelevant.)

Alba Pratalia (to no one and everyone):

Ódi et amó. Qua-ríd faciám fortásse requíris—
—Néscio-séd-fierí séntio et-éxcruciór.

*[A notification dings mid-metric:]

Latin.exe is attempting to access your emotional
core. Allow? [Allow] [Deny] [Snooze forever]

GEN Z:
No. Nope. Closed for lunch.
Out of business.
Forget it.
You want me to feel what, now? Latin? That’s
above my trauma paygrade.

Alba Pratalia:
Do you not sense it? The stab of love’s paradox?
The searing kiss of contradiction?
Do you not excrucior?
GEN Z:
I don’t even vibe without a content warning.
And you’re out here monologuing in vowel
gymnastics like it’s the final boss of Duolingo.

Alba Pratalia:
Sentio.
Et excrucior.
That’s all that matters.

GEN Z (shrugging):
I guess.
But can we put it in a carousel with cute fonts?

[A pigeon flies. It’s wearing Ray-Bans.]

GEN Z (pointing wildly):

And especially don’t hit us with the metric
pronunciation of elegiac couplets!
We didn’t sign up for that.
We signed up for vibes, moodboards, and zero
retention.
ALBA PRATALIA:
See? Look. You learned something already.

GEN Z (blinking):
Wait…
What?
No.
Nope. We’re not supposed to know that. That’s…
elitist. That’s Latinist. That’s—
…grammar.

ALBA PRATALIA (grinning like a caffeinated

Sphinx):
That’s learning.
And you just did it.
And guess what? It’s permanent.
It’s in you now. Like a cursed tattoo in a forgotten
verb tense.

GEN Z (in existential panic):

Brakes on. Hit the EJECT button.
We never allowed this. We didn’t even declare
pronouns!
We didn’t opt into the classics! We didn’t even read
the syllabus!

ALBA PRATALIA (whispering like an ancient

librarian possessed by Dionysus):
That’s the knowledge, baby. The knowledge.
And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Nothing.

GEN Z (softly, horrified):

Wait…
That’s a Humphrey Bogart quote.

[Long pause. Wind howls. A black-and-white

spotlight swings across the void.]

GEN Z (shrinking):
How come we know this?
We’re TikTok. We’re Tumblr-core.
We quote Doja Cat, not Bogart.
ALBA PRATALIA (laughs like thunder wrapped in
irony):
Muahahahaha.

GEN Z:
Nooooo!
This learning…
This learning was not consensual!!

[Offstage, a Greek chorus of librarians moans with

delight.]

Pratalia (clearing her throat in iambic pentameter):

Welcome, gentle entities, to today’s first-ever
political encounter
For my opponent, the demographic known
collectively and chaotically as— Gen Z.
(beat)
I shall defend justice as fairness.
Equality of opportunity.
Maximin principle.
Social primary goods.
The veil of ignorance
Gen Z:
Wait what.
We’re doing… what are we doing?
Is this a… podcast? A trial? A vibe check?

Pratalia (magnanimous):
This, young algorithm-fed kids, is called a debate.
You are to challenge my views with yours,
So that the light of reason might shine on both
opposing visions.

Gen Z (nervously chewing boba straw):

I can… do that?
I thought you had to, like, major in something.
Or be cancelled a few times to qualify.

Pratalia:
You need only breathe and vaguely believe in
something.
Come. Let us begin.
I shall argue that the state must guarantee justice—
Not as charity, but as structure.
The original position, behind a veil of ignorance,
Would lead any rational being
To secure rights for all, especially the least
advantaged.

Gen Z (staring into a distant meme):

That’s so… trippy.
Like, imagine being born and not knowing if you’ll
be rich or poor.
That’s like Squid Game but ethical.

Pratalia (nodding like a philosopher queen):

Precisely.

Gen Z:
But okay hold up.
What if I don’t want a big state?
What if I just want… vibes?
Like, if I make something cool and people like it,
Why does the government get to be like
“ooh gimme a slice of that”
Like it’s my mom asking for a fry?
Pratalia:
Because society is not a marketplace of fries,
It’s a shared enterprise.
Without the roads, the hospitals,
The education system you mocked in your memes,
Your little fry empire wouldn’t even exist.

Gen Z (defensive):
Okay but if I build a website
That sells anxiety-themed merch
And it blows up,
Why should some rando who didn’t do anything
Get a cut?
Isn’t that, like, theft?
That guy on TikTok said taxation is theft
And he had a beard so I trusted him.

Pratalia (raising eyebrow into orbit):

Ah.
You have met Nozick.
Tell me—when your merch site goes viral,
Who manages the servers?
The labor laws?
The intellectual property framework
That shields you from plagiarism by a 12-year-old in
Belarus?

Gen Z (mind blown):

Wait…
People do that?

Pratalia:
Yes, darling. That’s called “the state.”
It’s like an app, but for civilization.
Without it,
You’d be bartering your serotonin-themed tote bags
For goat milk and roach spray.

Gen Z (eyes wide):

Damn.
This debate thing is kind of lit.
I didn’t know I knew stuff.
I thought only people with neckties had opinions on
this.
Pratalia:
You have lived politics all your life without realizing.
Every time you Venmo a friend for overpriced boba,
Every time you swipe past a protest on your feed,
Every time your therapist cancels
Because insurance is a dystopian hydra—
You are living inside a structure
Someone chose or failed to choose.

Gen Z (softly):
So like… we could choose a better one?

Pratalia (smiling like Athena on a TED Talk):

Indeed.
But only if you stop being cute
And start being conscious.

Gen Z (tossing vape aside like a spent ideology):

Okay.
So here’s my take:
The state shouldn’t own me.
But it also shouldn’t let other people own me.
So maybe I don’t want a tiny state or a big one.
I want a smart one.
One that keeps the floor from collapsing
But lets me build weird stuff on top.

Pratalia (snapping fingers like a jazz professor):

Congratulations.
You have just invented
Liberal socialism with anarcho-aesthetic tendencies.
And a little bit of skatepark constitutionalism.
Well done.

Gen Z (pulling out phone):

Wait—let me post that.
I think I just became a political theorist.

[Long beat. Silence. Then a giant push notification

drops from the sky:
“You have unlocked: THE RIGHT TO HAVE AN
OPINION (AND DEFEND IT)”]

Gen Z (shouting to the sky):

I HAVE A TAKE!
AND IT’S COHERENT!
AND I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO WRITE AN
ESSAY!

Pratalia:
Welcome to the discourse.
Try not to trip on your own ideology.
There are no refunds.

[A rest time is given, like a changeover in tennis]

Pratalia:
Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier,
je ne sais pas.
Booooh!

Gen Z:
Ha! You don’t scare us anymore!
We are not afraid of knowing things anymore.
That’s Camus.
It bores us to death, but we don’t fear it.
It’s like the Eternals of literature.
Pratalia:
Yeah.
It bores any living creature.
Plants wilt when you read it out loud.

Gen Z (perplexed):
Then why do you read it?

Pratalia (pausing, haunted):

…I don’t really know.
Maybe because you can’t know it’s truly boring
Until you read it.
And then, you can’t un-know that.

Gen Z (stoned on epistemology):

Woooo… like… heavy, man.

Pratalia:
You’re talking like Cheech and Chong now.

Gen Z (looking around):

We don’t know what reality is anymore.
We just passed Foucault in the hallway trying to eat
a Wi-Fi router
While screaming “POWER IS EVERYWHERE.”

[Enter SARTRE, disheveled, sipping black coffee

and accidentally manifesting bad sex.]

Sartre:
Hell is other people.
Also breakfast.

Gen Z (panicking):
Why do all the French look like they smell like
ashtrays and monologues?

Pratalia (wistfully):
Because they do.
It’s called being continental.

Gen Z:
We miss when we didn’t know things.
When reality was just vibes and curated playlists.
Now it’s absurdity and dread and unfixed identity.
Pratalia:
That’s philosophy, darling.
You walked in for a meme
And left wearing despair like a coat you can't take
off.

Gen Z (whispers):
We wanted boba.
We got Being and Nothingness.

[The lights dim. Camus himself appears briefly in a

cloud of smoke, shrugs, and walks offstage
muttering “je m’en fous.”]

Gen Z Collective (snapping fingers in harmony):

Wait—we know that!
“Je m’en fous.”
Knowledge… has it somewhere. It’s in the memes.
Or the playlist. Or that one reel that made us cry
and didn’t know why.

Gen Z 1 (eyes glazed with soft recognition):

It was a song…
A French song.
A love one… sung by a short lady with fire in her
lungs and heartbreak for breakfast.

Gen Z 2 (light dawning):

Edith.
Little Edith.
La môme. The pain pixie.
The boss bitch of ballads.

Gen Z Collective (rising as one):

Je ne regrette rien
C’est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé…

[Silence. Then Pratalia:]

Pratalia (voice shaking):

I’m so proud of you.
That was intertextual.
That was transgenerational.
That was culture with eyeliner.
Gen Z (in awe):
So like…
We do know things?
Even if we don’t read them…
We feel them?
Like… through sound and drip?

Pratalia (softly):
Yes.
Knowledge doesn’t care how it gets in.
Through books. Through playlists. Through
heartbreaks with subtitles.
You carry it. Even when you deny it.
Especially then.

Gen Z (tearfully):
So what you’re saying is…
Learning is…
Inevitable?

Pratalia:
Just like taxes.
And French melodrama.
[Édith Piaf’s ghost drifts across the stage wearing
sequins and smoking the concept of despair. She
nods at Gen Z.]

[From NOWHERE]:

POUFFFFFFF!
A monumental cloud of smoke erupts—half
sandalwood incense, half regret.
ÁLVARO DIDEROT appears in the center, wearing
a bathrobe over corduroy pants. A coffee-stained
Critique of Pure Reason falls from his pocket like a
dead pigeon.
On his shoulder: Pascal, grooming himself and not
making eye contact.
At his side: Borges, dignified, solemn, possibly
stoned.

Pratalia (staggering back, horrified):

No.
No no no.
I never authorized this.
Who let you into the story?
There are rules.
There is structure.
There is tone control!

Diderot (yawning, scratching ear with Plato’s

Symposium):
You ask me?
I was tripping on edibles.

Borges (sniffing existentially):

Pizza edibles.

Pascal (purring like a fallen angel):

And Whiskas ones.
With tuna.

Gen Z (pointing at Pascal):

WHAT the actual kombucha is happening???

Gen Z 1:
Is that a talking cat?

Gen Z 2:
Is the dog … ?
Gen Z 3:
Wait… why do I understand them?

Pascal (with cold dignity):

Because knowledge, child, is no longer filtered.
The fourth wall was Berlin’d.
Now anyone with trauma and syntax can
monologue.

Pratalia (hyperventilating):
You were supposed to be in another book.
A whole different tone.
This is a structured absurdist educational discourse
with Gen Z.
You don’t belong here!

Diderot (lighting a cigarette):

Neither do they.
They’re the algorithmic aftermath of late capitalism.
I’m just the old professor that haunts stories when
you think they’re done.
Gen Z (trying to film everything):
Okay I am simultaneously high, terrified, and
learning.
This is like Inception but everyone is sleep-deprived
and owns a cat.

Borges:
There is no story.
Only the infinite library.
You opened the wrong book.
We walked in.

Pascal:
Also, we smelled meat.

Gen Z:
Okay but like—what is happening?

Diderot (grinning):
What’s always happening:
A breakdown.
A breakthrough.
And probably brunch, if we survive the
epistemological fallout.

Pratalia (defeated):
Fine.
Stay.
Just… don’t start a subplot.

Diderot:
Too late.
Pascal is already forming a union with the ghost of
Sartre.

Gen Z (whispers):
This is better than therapy.

[Appears: a glistening block of butter.]

[Borges immediately licks it.]

Gen Z (backing up, clutching emotional support

Hydro Flask):
Umm.
This is…
This is so problematic.
This is not okay.
This is triggering.

Diderot (eyes aflame, whispering like an

unmedicated prophet):
Dear Gen Z,
Holy family…
Church of good citizens…
Where the children are tortured until they tell their
first lie…
Where the will is broken by repression…
Where freedom is assassinated…
Where they outlaw desire and call it upbringing…

Marlon Brando (offstage):

Indeed.

[Everyone freezes.]

Gen Z:
Who spoke??
Pratalia (horrified):
No.
No no no.
You can’t be here.
This isn’t your genre.

Maria Schneider (off-stage):

Nobody.
But please pass the butter.

[The butter slides across the table on its own,

eventually offstage. Sodomy can be heard.]

Gen Z (sobbing into oat milk):

Why do we know this scene??
We never watched the film!
We learned it through memes and outrage posts!

Pratalia (smoking a cigarette lit by cancelled

directors):
Because culture isn’t consumed.
It violates you.
It passes through you.
Like… butter.

Gen Z:
We’re calling HR.

Diderot:
There is no HR in absurdist literature.
Only haunting.
And dairy.

[SFX: Distant theological whooshing.]

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—
CRASH.
Boom. Dust. Existential crisis. Body.

It’s Kierkegaard’s corpse.

Still intact.
Still fresh.
Still melancholic in the jawline.

Diderot (without emotion):

Oh not corpses falling from the sky again.
Pascal (muttering, shielding his whiskas):
Is this man glued to gravity or to meaning?

Borges:
It’s raining dead authors. Again.
And never the ones we ask for.

Gen Z (on the verge of spontaneous academic

awakening):
WHAT IS HAPPENING??
Who is this sad Victorian man??
Why does he look like he’d ghost his own funeral??

Pratalia (freezing mid-breath):

Wait.
No.
No no no.
I’ve written this before.
Corpse through roof. Void.
In Diderot’s first book.

Gen Z:
So wait… you're saying this happened… before?
Pratalia (whispering):
Yes.
But this time, it hasn’t been me.
I didn’t write this.
I swear it.

Pascal (feline horror):

The void’s gone recursive.

Diderot:
The narrative is replaying itself.
Like an anxiety dream.
Or a sophomore philosophy paper.

Borges (softly):
Someone else is writing now.
Someone who remembers

Gen Z (rocking back and forth):

Okay. Okay.
So we're in a recursive metafictional collapse
being written by… not the writer…
but the memory of the writer's own writing?
Pratalia (in awe and dread):
Exactly.
It's not me anymore.
It's something that once read me.

Diderot (dusting Kierkegaard’a body jam off his

lapel):
Well.
We’d better try to reach the real world if we want to
understand any of this.

Pratalia (deadpan, hands on hips):

You can’t.
This is a creative void.
It’s metaphysical.
Nothing connects to the real world. It’s all tone,
concept, and dramatic ellipses.

Pascal (hopping down, tail twitching):

mrrrp.

[He pads over to the edge of the void, which

technically has no “edge.” He scratches at the air.
Nothing. He scratches again. A low hum. One more
time—]

[SCHLUP.]
A DOOR suddenly materializes, exactly where
Pascal was scratching. It’s wooden. Slightly ajar.

Gen Z:
Wait. WAIT.
The cat made a DOOR?

Diderot (already approaching):

Naturally

Borges (shrugging):
You know… cats.

Pratalia (staring, stunned):

That… that wasn’t supposed to be possible.
That breaks everything.

Pascal (licking paw smugly):

Exactly.
Gen Z (filming):
I am posting this with the caption:
“Cat opens portal to real world, philosopher follows.
No context.”
This is going viral.

Diderot (leaning in, hand on frame):

Real world, here we come.
Let’s find whoever’s writing this and ask them what
they’re on.

Scene: Outside the door. At last, the “real” world —

or at least a passable facsimile. Cars. Pedestrians.
That peculiar urban hum that sounds like progress
and loneliness rehearsing their duet. In front of the
door: steps, in bowed fashion, lead down to the
sidewalk.

[Diderot stands at the threshold like an ex-

philosopher turned location scout, arms wide, heart
weirdly full.]
Diderot (beaming):
Wanna hear a fun trivia?
This is the main door of the building used to film
Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.
Jack Lemmon lived here. C.C. Baxter.
This very spot.
Cinema happened here.

Pratalia (flat, without turning):

Oh, shut up and deal.

[Beat.]

[Diderot stares after her. Smiles faintly. Because

damn it — it was a good line.]

[A cab honks in the distance. Somewhere, in a

different film entirely, a typewriter starts clacking.]

[A DWARF LADY appears. Electric orange punk

hair like a nuclear firework. Combat boots,
chainmail miniskirt, a tattoo that says
“Postmodernism Is For Cowards” across her
clavicle. She stops, grins, and—with zero buildup—
flashes the entire cast.

Pratalia (pointing, unfazed):

See?
This I wrote in the first Diderot book.

Diderot (without blinking):

Then you'd better step aside.
(He grabs Pratalia by the sleeve, yanks her like he’s
seen this movie before.)

[BEAT.]

SPLAT.
SQUIZZ.

[A corpse lands with poetic violence exactly where

Pratalia stood. The impact is grotesque, messy, and
artistically framed. Blood sprays like a Jackson
Pollock being emotionally unstable. Everyone is
instantly covered in warm, steaming human jelly.]
Gen Z (dripping):
OH MY GOD
WHY IS IT WET
WHY IS IT WARM
WHY IS IT THEMATICALLY ACCURATE???

Pascal (licking a spot on his paw that might have

once been part of someone's lung):
Still not fully decomposed.

Borges (brushing off viscera with the dignity of a

man used to narrative violence):
This is what happens when foreshadowing goes
literal.

Pratalia (spitting out a tooth that isn’t hers):

It was supposed to be ironic. Absurd.
Now it’s recursive.
It’s eating itself.

Diderot:
Welcome to authorship, dear.
We don’t write the stories.
They eventually start writing us.

[The dwarf lady zips up her jacket, gives them a

thumbs-up, and moonwalks into traffic without
consequence.]

Gen Z (shell-shocked):
We’ve entered a genre that no longer has a rating.
We’re in the NC-17 of meaning.

Pascal:
That’s what you get for asking what’s above the
void.

Diderot:
Pratalia, please do tell, after all this… to what I owe
the pleasure of being here?

Pratalia (hesitating):
Well...I was going to...

Diderot (interrupting, already bored):

Yeah, yeah, I know. You were going to ask me the
same thing.
Happens every time.
Someone fiddles with meaning, I poof in.
Anyway—what were you all up to, back in the void,
before Borges, Pascal, and yours truly materialized
like an edible-induced vision?

Gen Z (adjusting their Crocs, which now squelch

with Kierkegaard jelly):
Um.
We were… just existing.
Like, passively.
Until she (points at Pratalia) started speaking Latin
unprovoked.

Pratalia (defensive):
It was Catullus.
Elegiac couplets. Proper meter.

Gen Z:
Exactly. That’s the literary version of summoning a
demon with a Ouija board.
Pratalia (mock indignation):
It was going rather well, actually.
They quoted Camus and Piaf.

Gen Z:
Unwillingly.
It was non-consensual learning.

Diderot (with the tone of “Who’s flying this plane,

then?”, arms flailing like an old philosopher
detecting a logical fallacy):
So, Pratalia...
You put yourself inside the narration.
So tell me—who’s narrating?

Pratalia (caught like a student asked to define

“ontology” before coffee):
Well, me, obviously.
As an… omniscient third-person—
slightly biased—
narratorial presence with thematic inclinations.
Diderot (folding arms, pointing vaguely at the
exploded corpse):
I don’t think so.
Unless you’re telling me you wrote me showing up
and also the falling corpse
and also the butter scene
and also Maria Schneider’s ghost asking for
condiments.

Pratalia (faltering):
Then who…?

Diderot:
Grand. Just grand.
So let me recap:
You, Alba Pratalia,
inserted yourself into your own narration,
in first person omniscient,
during a political debate with Gen Z,
whose last known collective act was googling “who is
Plato and can I cancel him?”
And you did it to teach culture.
Pratalia:
Yes?
With Catullus. In metrica.
And Camus. In French.

Diderot (arms wide like he’s narrating a Greek

tragedy sponsored by Netflix):
To Gen Z.
The same demographic who think “it’s” and “its”
are interchangeable,
and who once asked if Aristotle was “that bald guy
from Fast & Furious.”

Borges (growls approvingly):

I like Vin Diesel.

Pascal (deadpan):
He’s more stoic than most Stoics.

Diderot (turning back to Pratalia):

So congratulations.
You have successfully ripped open the fabric of
metaphysical continuity
just to see if a TikTok-activated democracy would
react positively to Catullus elegiac couplets.

Gen Z (from behind a phone camera):

OMG you guys are like SO real for this.

Pratalia (meekly):
I thought it would be… poetic?

Diderot (walking off):

Of course it’s poetic.
So is the sound of a violin
while Rome burns
and Kierkegaard falls from a sky that wasn’t
supposed to exist.

Pratalia (hands on hips, hair billowing like the ego

of a film school graduate):
Don’t take that tone with me, Diderot.
I created you.
I made you the way you are.
I gave you the things you know.
I sculpted your cynical wit, your tired mind,
your aching joints and your metaphysical trauma.

Diderot (lighting a cigarette made of pure

resistance and postmodern despair):
And still, here we are.

Pascal (staring at the void, licking his paw):

It’s raining men.
Allelujah.

Gen Z (filming all of it):

Wait, wait…
this feels like a trauma arc.
Are we in season two now?

Pratalia (through gritted teeth):

You're not supposed to evolve.
You’re not supposed to know I created you.
That was the whole point—fiction, illusion!
Diderot (blowing out smoke):
Then maybe don’t build characters out of
unresolved existentialism and spite.

Pascal (now wearing tiny sunglasses):

The author has lost control of the narrative.
Initiating Protocol Jellyfall in 3... 2...

Pratalia:
Don’t you dare—

SPLAT
Another corpse.
Human jelly.
Everyone sighs like it’s Tuesday.

Diderot (wiping off spleen):

Season two it is.

Diderot (arms crossed, eyebrow permanently

arched):
So, Pratalia, what were you smoking before deciding
to descend into your own narrative?
Pratalia (sniffing as if insulted by the air itself):
Excuse me—I don’t write high. I write drunk. I have
a style, thank you very much.
Jack London. Hemingway. Bukowski.

Gen Z (raising a hesitant hand):

Wait… are those your pronouns?

Pratalia (deadpan):
My pronouns are: go in the corner and think about
what you've done to grammar.
You're grounded? Or your grounded?

Diderot (to Borges, quietly):

Grammar terrorism. It’s happening again.

Borges:
I tried to warn you. She brought Latin back.

Diderot (to Pratalia, louder now):

So… drunk and what?

Pratalia (gazing somewhere both wistful and wine-

soaked):
So, after a bottle of Cabernet—or five—Jorge Luis
Borges (the Argentinian, not your dog)
Promised me the other night
That he’d speak personally with the Persian.
But the poets’ heaven is a bit crowded these days—
Maybe I’ll get a job as an usher or a scribe.
I’ll have to polish his mirrors,
Transcribe quatrains for Khayyam…
But a laurel as a minor genius,
On his honor—won’t be denied me.

Pascal (staring into the middle distance like a cat

who saw the void and it winked):
Yep. We’re fucked.

Borges (sighs deeply, tail swishing):

Goodbye, reality. It's been weird.

Gen Z (confused, scrolling TikTok for emotional

support):
What is this your saying?
Diderot (snaps, full teacher mode activated):
BACK. IN. THE. CORNER.
And no phone privileges until you understand the
subjunctive.

[A pause. The sound of Gen Z slinking off. A single

"okay boomer" echoes faintly like a dying Wi-Fi
signal.]

Pratalia (already pouring more wine into a glass

shaped like Aristotle’s head):
Now, who's got a mirror and a dead Persian poet on
speed dial?

[The universe coughs politely.]

Pratalia:
You know what, Diderot,
They’re not bad kids, this Gen Z. Sure, they tear up
books and manuals like it’s a sport,
Then collapse into detox treatments of pure
cynicism.
They’ve got pale faces and fragile little smiles—
Especially if you dare mention structuralism.
Still, I kind of like them. Ever since I met Descartes,
really.
Imagine, though—what if the stories I write, like
those about you, were reviewed by Roland Barthes?

Gen Z (perking up like meerkats near a self-help

bookstore):
We are not afraid of structuralism!

Pascal (ears flicking, tail twitching like a

Nietzschean trap):
Oh really? Please, enlighten us.

Gen Z (clearly bluffing, eyes darting like nervous

prey):
Eeeehm… you first.

All (in beautiful terrifying unison, like Gregorian

sarcasm):
BACK. IN. THE. CORNER.

[Gen Z drifts backward like embarrassed fog.]

Diderot (smirking):
Next they'll say Derrida is just a TikTok dance.

Borges (dog version, tail sweeping the footnotes):

I give them three days before they start calling
Wittgenstein “Witty.”

Pratalia (sighing, eyes half on the stars, half on a

parking meter):
You know, Diderot, beloved character of mine,
Sometimes I feel like I’m just stealing words from
others.
Whole thoughts. Whole styles. Like I’m renting
language from dead men with better resumes.

Diderot (smiling like he’s about to spill cabernet on

a first edition):
Well, as Dario Fo said—
Mediocres copy. Geniuses steal.

Pascal (tail coiled, sharpening a clause):

And, quod erat demonstrandum, that quote belongs
to T. S. Eliot.
Diderot:
Exactly my point.

Pascal:
That’s literally what “quod erat demonstrandum”
means.

Borges (wagging slightly):

Guys, guys, tune it down. You’re scaring Gen Z.

Gen Z (crouched behind a traffic cone, clutching an

e-reader and a therapy app):
Mummy and Daddy are fighting…
In Latin…
About Nobel Laureates…

[Beat.]

Pratalia (light):
See? They’re learning.
Fear is the first step.
Diderot:
Followed closely by sarcasm and a deep mistrust of
anthologies.

[Somewhere, where rooms are hexagonal, a book

misquotes itself.]

Gen Z:
May we remind you that, according to our notes, we
are still looking for:
a) Who’s writing us now;
b) How we came to this?

Pascal (stretching like a scholar at dawn):

Well… when they're right, they're right.

Borges (sniffing the wind for intertextuality):

And they’re right.

Pratalia and Diderot (in smug, synchronized chaos):

And their right.

Gen Z (with a dead stare and a deep sigh):

That was way unnecessary.
[A collective silence. Somewhere, a comma weeps.]

Diderot (checking his sleeve for more Latin):

Look, you want answers? Get in line. Even I don't
know who's writing me anymore. For all I know, I
was ghostwritten by a hungover librarian with a
Camus complex.

Pratalia (dramatic, gesturing to the invisible

horizon):
We are all footnotes in someone else's tragedy,
darlings.

Borges:
Or worse—someone’s Pinterest mood board.

Pascal (yawning):
Frankly, I blame the Enlightenment. Too much
light, not enough plot armor.

Gen Z (quietly, texting):

Can someone please just reboot us in a sitcom?
With laugh tracks? And rules?
Borges (to Pascal):
Do you think they’re ready for metafiction?

Pascal:
They’re still trying to conjugate “whose.” Let's wait.

[Cue piano: “Where everybody knows your name…”

echoing through the metaphysical rift like a sitcom
laugh track haunting the void.]

[Enter: NORM, unchanged by time, space, or moral

consequence.]

Everyone except Gen Z:

NOOOOORM!

Norm (already slouching, gravity itself too tired to

resist):
Cut the small talk. Gimme a beer.

[POP. A bar assembles out of nowhere. Wood

panels, sticky floors, and an atmosphere made
entirely of 1980s reruns. Behind the bar stands
Borges—the dog. No opposable thumbs, no
problem. Bowtie on. Towel around neck.]

Borges (tilting head wisely):

How’s life treating you, Norm?

Norm (sitting on a stool):

Like I just ran over a dog.

Borges (hurt):
What the bark, Norm?

Norm (rubbing temples):

Forget it. Rough day. I spent all morning sawing
together rips in the fabric of the universe.

[Everyone leans in.]

Norm (with solemn, drunken poetry):

Taffeta.
It wrinkles so easily.

[Pause. Borges slides him a beer.]

Gen Z (huddled together):
Wait—who is he?

Pratalia (wiping jelly corpse residue from her brow):

He’s a a warning. Never stop watching syndication.
It’s where memory goes to fossilize.

Pascal (clinking a glass with a claw):

And where philosophy orders a double and pretends
it isn’t crying.

[The jukebox flickers. It plays a slowed-down lo-fi

remix of the Cheers theme in reverse. Time pauses,
then hiccups.]

Norm (raising glass):

To everyone who’s ever been written into a corner...
and drank their way out.

Everyone:
Cheers!

Gen Z (terrified):
Wait wait wait… we’re roaming into boomer
territory now.
Gen Z 1: Like when… they indulged in people being
alcoholics.
Gen Z 2: And normalized booze!

Norm (rising like Dionysus after tax season):

Mr. Booze!

Everyone else (pointing upward):

Mr. Boooooze!

Mister B, Double O, Z EEEEEEE

That sure spells booze!
You will wind up wearing tattered shoes
If you mess with Mister Booze!
(Don't mess with Mister Booze! Don't mess with
Mister Booze!)

Gen Z (huddled like orphans outside a jazz funeral):

Who are these people?
Why do they know the choreography?
Why is the dog tap dancing??

Pratalia (shaking maracas):

It’s called culture, children.
Unfiltered, problematic, and performed nightly at
the intersection of Sinatra and collapse.

Diderot (spinning in a circle):

Also, this is your intervention.
Not about the drinking. About never having
watched Robin and the 7 Hoods.

Pascal (doing jazz paws):

Repent! Or be converted into a musical number!

Don’t mess with Mister Booze!

He’ll take your mind, your soul, your shoes!
He’s cool, he’s smooth, he never snooze…
He’s Rat Pack Wrath with morning news!
Gen Z (sobbing into vape clouds):
We just wanted a debate!
Not… Sinatra-themed purgatory!

Borges:
You should’ve read the terms and conditions.

Norm:
Bottoms up, kiddos.
It only gets weirder from here.

Gen Z:

Isn't anyone paying attention? rips in reality...

through which corpses fall?

Pratalia:

I already wrote this. In several Diderot books.

Diderot:

Confirm

Gen Z:
Mr. Norm, what did you mean by "sawing together
rips in the fabric of reality"? And what's a taffeta?

Norm (turns slowly on his stool, eyes bloodshot

from too much truth and too little sleep):
Taffeta, kid, is what the universe puts on when it
wants to impress the laws of physics at a cocktail
party. It’s shiny. It’s stiff. It crinkles like forgotten
love letters and tears like hope in a blender. Now
imagine the cosmos wearing it… and catching itself
on a doorknob made of irony.

Gen Z (blinking):
So… reality rips?

Norm:
Not rips. Tears. Fine distinction. A rip is accidental.
A tear… well, sometimes the author just gets tired.
Or poetic. Or drunk.

Borges (dog, pouring beer somehow):

It’s always the same. First comes the tear. Then the
confusion. Then the corpse. Then the jazz.
Gen Z (looking increasingly distressed):
Wait—so we’re in something written? By someone
else?

Norm (nods):
Yup. And badly proofread at that. Your existence is
punctuation-dependent.

Gen Z:
That’s… that’s not okay. That’s super not okay.
That’s like, illegal in several safe spaces.

Pratalia (with theatrical weariness):

You think I wanted this? I was just trying to write a
clever absurdist piece on epistemological
disintegration through collapsing genres. But now
you’re here, and Norm’s stitching taffeta with a
universe-threading needle, and I think we passed
irony three exits ago.

Gen Z (tapping phone nervously):

Okay but like... if this is a narrative, can we opt out?
Hit unsubscribe? Choose a better story?
Diderot:
Nope. We’re in this like a post-structuralist in a
labyrinth. The only way out is deeper in.

Pascal:
Use the butter.

Gen Z:
We demand answers!

Norm (raising his glass):

Then here’s one:
Don’t tug the seams unless you’re ready for the
stuffing to scream.

(Silence. A slow rustle. Somewhere distant, a giggle.

Then—)

SPLAT.

Another corpse through the ceiling. Wearing tap

shoes this time.
Borges (casually):
Broadway’s leaking again.

Pratalia (wiping corpse-jelly off her cheek with the

dignity of someone used to stranger things):
I know, I know. I always do this—narrational
absurdism, fourth-wall graffiti, a sprinkle of
epistemic despair… then jazz numbers. Often tap
dancing. Sometimes synchronized existential doubt
in iambic pentameter. But this… this is way beyond
my style.

Diderot:
You’ve lost control, darling. This is no longer a
book. It’s a spontaneous ontological combustion.

Pascal (sniffing at the tap-dancing corpse):

Smells like Sartre and burnt shoe polish.

Gen Z:
Okay but—who greenlit this? Who gave this whole
situation the thumbs-up emoji?
Borges (licking human jelly off his paw):
Nobody. That’s the point. It’s jazz, kid. You riff, you
fall, you bleed meaning. Or you just… scat.

Norm (raises his glass):

To broken continuity, inconsistent tone, and
authorship hemorrhaging from multiple
metaphysical wounds!

Everyone (except Gen Z):

Cheers!

Gen Z (horrified):
We're surrounded by literary constructs with trauma
and drinking problems!

Pratalia (sighs, gazing at the ceiling):

No… you’re surrounded by yourself. You just didn’t
know the mirror had dialogue.

Gen Z:
That’s... that’s so Tumblr-core.
Diderot (to Borges):
How long until another corpse?

Borges:
Give it a minute. I think Nietzsche’s queued.

[And then THUMP. One sound, two bodies. Not

human bodies, Galilean bodies. A wooden ball, a
lead ball, same diameter, hitting the ground exactly
at the same time.]

Pratalia: has an epiphany.

Pratalia: (to Diderot)

Character....

Diderot: (to Pratalia)

Author...?
Pratalia:

Character!

Diderot:

Author?!

Pratalia:

Simplicius!

Diderot:

Don't call me that

Pratalia:

If I am your "official" author, like "recognized,

notharized"...
Diderot:

And you are, because... oh no.... oh no

Pratalia:

whoever is writing the story now is writing you, and

Borges, and Pascal. My "official" inventions...
therefore....

Diderot: oh no...

Pratalia:

yes!

Pascal:

oh don't go there...
Pratalia:

it's the only interpretation!

Borges:

change exegesis!

Pratalia:

it's the only exegesable! The pretentious author is...

apocryphal

Diderot, Borges, Pascal:

Nooooooooooo

Gen Z:
what what what? what did we miss?

From the depths of history, faint and dusty but

somehow Bluetooth-enabled:

Irenaeus of Lyon (materializing as a hologram made

of Latin footnotes): Told ya.

Council of Carthage (397 CE, speaking in unison

like a Gregorian barbershop quartet): Told yaaaa.

Gen Z (squinting): Who the hell are these guys? Is

this a crossover episode with Assassin’s Creed?

Diderot (rubbing temples): No, no, no. This is

ecclesiastical canon enforcement. We’re being
audited by orthodoxy.

Pascal: And by orthodoxy we mean literary dogma.

Borges: And by audited, we mean about to be
redacted out of existence.
Gen Z 2 (scrolling through air): Ugh, it’s like every
TikTok comment thread where someone says,
“Read the Council of Nicaea before posting.”
Gen Z 1: Who are these people?

Irenaeus (smugly): I coined the term “heresy,”

thank you very much.
Council of Carthage: And we decided which gospels
were in. Spoiler alert: yours wasn’t.

Pratalia (snapping): ENOUGH! This isn’t about

gospels, or creeds, or 4th-century manuscript
drama! This is about authorship. Ownership.
Metanarrative sovereignty. This is about me—and
the fact that someone out there is writing my
characters, hijacking my style, and raining
Kierkegaards on my sidewalk!

Diderot (muttering): And using Galilean physics

like a doorbell.

Pratalia (pointing at the void): WHOEVER YOU

ARE, I KNOW YOU’RE THERE. TYPING.
SMIRKING. THINKING YOU’RE CLEVER WITH
YOUR MIX OF PSEUDO-PHILOSOPHICAL
POSTMODERN SLAPSTICK.
Well guess what?

She draws a pen. A real one. Fountain. Montblanc.

Pratalia: I can write back.

Pascal (worried): Pratalia, please, don’t do this.

Remember what happened to Unamuno.

Borges: He got written out of his own story.

Gen Z: Wait, can that happen to us?

Council of Carthage (approvingly): Yes.

Irenaeus (nodding): And it will.

Diderot: This whole structure is destabilizing faster

than a freshman’s philosophy midterm. We need to
anchor the narrative or at least reset the POV
hierarchy.
Gen Z 1: Can we have subtitles or something?

Suddenly: a huge typewriter key smashes into the

pavement. It’s the key for “~”.

All turn to Pratalia.

Pratalia (whispers): A tilde…

Pascal: That’s not a letter. That’s a warning.

Norm (from the bar, sipping): It begins.

Diderot: We destroyed the Catholic Apostolic

Church twice. Once in Rome, with Anti-Cool. Once
in Avignon, with actual weapons. We can’t now turn
around and defend the apostolic canon.

Pratalia (gritting her teeth): Not the apostolic

canon, you powdered imbecile. Your canon. Mine.
We’re not defending religion—we’re defending
authorship. Fight the apocryphal appropriation of
narration, and we’ll figure out copyright once the
bodies stop falling.
Gen Z (arms flailing): What? What? Whaaaaat?
You guys keep talking in riddles and war crimes!

Pascal (tenderly ): Here. Have some Play-Doh. Be

good. Sculpt a little Derrida. Let the adults sort out
this metafictional breach of sovereignty.

Gen Z (taking the Play-Doh reluctantly): Can I

make a TikTok of it?

Pascal: No.

Pratalia (pointing at the sky): Look. The rift's

opening again. Get ready.

THWUMP. A sandal hits the pavement. Then a

satchel. Then a copy of Bakunin for Beginners.
Then—

SPLAF. A corpse. Threadbare black overcoat. “NO

GODS NO MASTERS” stitched on the back in
lovingly ironic cross-stitch. One eye still twitching
out of sheer ideological spite.
Diderot (dusting off his coat): Aaaand, here we go.
Anarchists falling out of windows. Fo, where are
you, you magnificent bastard?

Dario Fo (emerging from a cloud of Commedia

dell'Arte fog, juggling Molotov cocktails):
Buonasera, Diderot! Long time no see! You still
meddling with narrative determinism?

Borges (sprinting full speed, tail like a wind vane,

and launching into Fo’s arms): Since Panacea,
Dario! You had me at Accidental Death of an
Anarchist! Slurp slurp slurp.

Pascal (grooming his ear nonchalantly): I always act

La fame dello Zanni to get extra treats.

Gen Z (now sculpting a disturbingly accurate model

of Roland Barthes in Play-Doh): Who is this guy
and why is he getting French-kissed by a dog?

Pratalia (already scribbling notes): Fo rewrote

everything. Made the stage into a riot. We may need
him if this whole meta-narrative breaks into full-
blown insurrection.

Diderot: Into? Darling, look around. We’re three

corpses past that.

Fo (grinning like Mephistopheles with a theatre

grant): Shall I call Franca?

Pascal (eyes wide): If Franca Rame descends from

the sky, I’m converting. No gods, no masters, but
plenty of divas.

Franca Rame: “Dario, we said drinking only after

noon.”

Fo:
“Love, it’s always noon somewhere.”

Franca (arms crossed, foot tapping):

“Oh yeah, Mr. Nobel Prize smarty pants? Then I’m
calling Enzo.”
Diderot:
“May I comment: not the brightest call for sobriety?
Still fully agree.”

—And then, as if conjured by a Milanese stage

whisper, Enzo Jannacci materializes out of pure
narrative whimsy, adjusting an invisible tie and
raising an eyebrow as if he never truly left.

Jannacci (grinning sideways):

“Ah beh, sì beh… Ho visto un re!”

Diderot (jumping to his feet like a child at a Punch

and Judy show):
“Sa l’ha vist cus’è?”

Borges, already spinning in circles:

“Ha visto un re!”

All (except the baffled, eternally alienated Gen Z):

“Ah, beh; sì, beh!”

Jannacci, now seated on a cloud shaped like a

Vespa, croons:
“Un re che piangeva seduto sulla sella, piangeva
tante lacrime, ma tante che bagnava anche il
cavallo!”

Pascal, visibly moved:

“Povero re…”

Everyone else (again, except Gen Z):

“E povero anche il cavallo!—Sì, beh; ah, beh.—Sì,
beh; ah, beh.”

Gen Z just stands there, mouths open like fish in

Wi-Fi outage, trying to decipher if this is protest
theatre, a glitch in the timeline, or some kind of
Italian TikTok trend. One of them timidly opens
their Notes app, but gives up.

Meanwhile, Diderot, now inexplicably in a

Neapolitan mask and juggling olives, turns toward
the imaginary fourth wall.

Diderot:
“This is what happens when narrative authority
collapses. Welcome to epistemological commedia
dell’arte, kids. There’s no syllabus. Just tears,
horses, and metaphors that drink grappa.”

Jannacci, still strumming an invisible accordion:

“E sempre allegri bisogna stare, ché il nostro
piangere fa male al re...”

Diderot: “Guys, don’t despair. We’re getting a grasp

on it. At least now people who actually fell are
falling. We’re getting closer to reality.”

Pascal (twirling a Newtonian apple on one finger

like a Harlem Globetrotter of theological doubt):
“Yeah, Fall 2.0 is the new Fall.”

From the cobblestone cracks of metaphysical

Europe, the entire city of Prague rises like a
Kafkaesque chorus of haunted spires and existential
bureaucracy:
“We told ya all!”
Cue the ancient, bitter grunts of Spartan babies—
yes, those tossed from cliffs for being too poetic,
now climbing back with six-packs and trauma in
their tiny eyes:
“FUCK YOU ALL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!”

One baby crushes a soft cheese with its bare hand.

Another deadlifts a fully grown Nietzsche, who
mutters, “God is dead, but this kid’s got delts.”

Borges:
“Something’s coming. I smell metaphor.”

Pratalia:
“We’re past absurd. We’re in recursive allegory.”

Gen Z (clutching phones now useless, eyes darting):

“What’s happening?? Why are Spartan babies
swearing at us? And why is that city speaking Czech
and Latin?!”
Diderot :
“Because, dear children, we are now... post-
narrative.”

Fo (arms wide like an emcee announcing the end of

rational thought):
“Pratalia, haven’t you noticed your tempo teatrale
now demands an intermezzo musicale?”

Pratalia (curtsying with a flourish that makes her

scarf dramatically leap into another dimension):
“Well, I have, Maestro, thank you for noticing!”

Fo:
“What are you waiting for, then?”

Pratalia (hands raised like a jazz conductor

possessed by Cole Porter’s ghost):
“For them to notice that—‘Times have
chaaaanged!’”

Fo (launching into perfect pitch):

“Aaaaand we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.”

Jannacci (leaping in from a trapdoor no one saw

being installed):
“If today,
Any shock they should try to stem,
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on theeeeeem.”

All but Gen Z (in top hats, fishnets, and inexplicably

synchronized feather boas):
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes!

Pascal (doing a surprisingly accurate Charleston):

“Even Calvin would’ve popped a monocle at this.”

Diderot (swinging from a chandelier that wasn’t

there five seconds ago):
“Finally! A logical structure I can dance to!”
Borges (behind the bar, stirring a martini ):
“I’ve never felt more at home.”

Gen Z (horrified):
“WHY is everyone singing ? Is this... tap dancing
history?!”

Franca Rame (deadpans while pouring herself a

Scotch):
“Relax, bambini. This is still better than TikTok.”

Cue jazz hands. Cue existential dread in glitter.

And somewhere, offstage, Plymouth Rock shrugs

and rolls off a cliff.

Chorus (in harmony so tight it could sue for

harassment):
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today
And black's white today
And day's night today
And that gent today
You gave a cent today
Once had several chateaux!

A Marxist mermaid pirouettes past Gen Z, who are

filming but ironically.

When folks who still can ride in jitneys

Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys
Lack baby clo’es
Anything GOOOOES!

Spotlight widens. Pratalia glows.

Pascal:
“She’s not just breaking the fourth wall, she’s
redecorating it.”

Diderot:
“This is what Barthes meant. Probably.”

Gen Z (still confused, now clutching emotional

support LaCroix):
“What... what are jitneys? And why is everything
dancing?!”
Pratalia (spinning, triumphant):
“Because, dearest... the author is drunk, the canon is
bleeding, and the musical number never ends.”

[Scene: The sky above reality—already fragile,

stitched with taffeta and sarcasm—splits with the
gentle sigh of an overworked metaphor. A single
object falls: not a sword, nor a plague, nor another
misunderstood academic. Just… a fountain pen.
Elegant. Leaking ink like memory. Lands with a
delicate plop.]

PASCAL (eyes wide, tail twitching): Keep the

absurd, guys! It’s working!

[A klieg light flashes. Everyone flinches. A spotlight

lands on Dario Fo, who stands center-stage, one
foot already unconsciously tapping.]

FO (dramatically): I won’t dance! Don’t ask me!

[A piano, uninvited and self-aware, begins tinkling
out Jerome Kern chords from a corner of the
cosmos.]

JANNACCI (stepping forward like a guilty

pleasure):
I won't dance, madame, with you,
My heart won't let my feet do things they should
do…

[Borges howls melodically. Pratalia throws on a

feather boa made of discarded footnotes. Diderot
dons a hat he swears isn’t symbolic. The narrative
begins to sway.]

[Gravity loosens. Music swells. Characters—named,

unnamed, plagiarized—tap dance across the
collapsing timeline, leaving behind footprints
shaped like interrobangs.]

[The air crackles. Not with lightning, not with

tension—well, yes, also that—but mostly with
syncopation. Something invisible has started
swinging. Somewhere, a time signature loses its
balance and Dave Brubeck catches it mid-fall, 5/4
smirk on his face.]

GEN Z (totally not dancing): What what what now?

What’s happening?!

DAVE BRUBECK (on a translucent Steinway,

floating midair):
Chaos and improvisation, you minions.
Structure is for cowards.

[The piano begins a smooth, dissonant groove. A

metronome explodes from sheer existential panic.]

DIDEROT (adjusting imaginary cufflinks):

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus,
When he said the world was round...

PASCAL (tail slapping rhythmically):

They all laughed when Edison recorded sound.
BORGES (snout to the heavens):
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother,
When they said that man could fly...

PRATALIA (stepping into the light, feather boa

once again alive and snarling):
(Is it my turn? Good.)
They told Marconi wireless was a phony,
It's the same old cry—

ALL (in a swinging crescendo, hips entirely

unsupervised):
They laughed at me wanting you,
Said I was reaching for the moon—
But oh, you came through,
Now they'll have to change their tune!

GEN Z (cornered, swaying): This isn’t even

TikTok-synchronized!

ALL (ignoring Gen Z, grinning, kicking higher):

They all said we never could be happy,
They laughed at us and how!
But ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh now?

[Jannacci throws his fedora in the air. Dario Fo

catches it with a pirouette. Brubeck punches a C7#9
into the clouds. The sky bursts into applause.]

GEN Z: Is this… is this jazz?

PASCAL (handing them Play-Doh again): No. This

is literary survival. Keep sculpting your pronouns,
sweetheart.

BORGES (panting, tail wagging, unhinged):

Go on, guys, go on! More Pratalia nonsense!

PRATALIA (channeling chaos, arms wide):

Lobster Thermidor à la Crevette with a Mornay
sauce served in a Provençale manner with shallots
and aubergines, garnished with truffle pâté,
brandy... and with a fried egg on top—
(beat)
...and spam.
[Silence. Glorious silence. The sort of silence only
achievable after the phrase “and spam” has been
weaponized.]

BORGES (collapsing in laughing howls):

Have you got anything without spam?

PASCAL (cackling tears running down his whiskers,

curled on the floor):
Well… there’s spam egg sausage and spam… that’s
not got much spam in it!

[The void emits a deep, satisfied sigh. A trumpet

plays a B♭ out of sheer approval. Somewhere,
Samuel Beckett nods from a bar stool made entirely
of dead puns.]

DIDEROT (arms raised like Moses parting a deli

menu):
Well, if this doesn’t do it…
[The void hiccups. A pixelated rainbow flutters
through the ceiling. Out of it, a MAN slips. And
Spam.]

PRATALIA (whispers):
...we may have reached peak nonsense.

BORGES (sniffs sandwich):

This smells like… victory. And smoked gouda.

GEN Z (off-screen, muffled):

Can someone explain what just happened?

PASCAL (still wheezing):

What happens, child… is spam. Always spam.
Everything else is décor.

[The man blinks, as if rebooting an outdated

operating system. He adjusts his belt, rises from the
lemon-logic-smudged floor with the grace of an
unplugged refrigerator.]

ALL (eyebrows united):

So it was you? Appropriating apocryphal writing?
GUY (dusting existential lint from his khakis):
Oh, shooting big words artillery, aren't we?
Appropriating... apocryphal... Well, it seemed like
an opportunity. You left so many dangling
footnotes.

BORGES (tilting his head like a scholarly spaniel):

Who are you anyway?

GUY (with the dignity of a man who once

overcooked the pasta for Derrida):
I'm Mr. Stephens. Head of Catering.

[Silence. The kind that spreads like a stain.]

DIDEROT:
Well, my tray was wet.

PASCAL:
I specifically asked for no peas in my penne
all’arrabbiata.

PRATALIA (clapping each word like a judicial

gavel):
And. I. Specifically. Wanted. You. Out of my writing
identity.

MR. STEPHENS (hands raised in the international

gesture of buffet-related innocence):
I just brought the napkins, all right? Then boom,
the fourth wall sneezed, the third act caved in, and
next thing I know I’m in a metanarrative showdown
with a dog, a philosopher, and a woman wielding
exegesis like it’s a blunt object.

GEN Z (scrolling on four phones simultaneously):

Can someone TL;DR this? Who’s the dude? Is he
canon? Is he cancelled?

DIDEROT (glaring):
Are you even licensed to break the fourth wall,
Stephens?

MR. STEPHENS (shrugging):

I brought cheese platters to the Theatre of the
Absurd. I once made Voltaire an omelette so
confusing it inspired Candide. I’ve seen things—
artisanal things.

PRATALIA (menacingly calm):

You’re not narrative. You’re garnish.

MR. STEPHENS (muttering):

And yet here I am, seasoning your story.

[At this, a bread roll spins out of nowhere and

knocks his dignity slightly to the left.]

[A pause. Then—]

GEN Z:
Wait, so like, is he the author or the caterer?

ALL (in one collective existential groan):

YES.

PRATALIA (arms crossed, eyes narrowed):

Mr. Stephens, good old evil character. Would you
mind revealing your real face? You know, just for
posterity?
[Mr. Stephens exhales like an industrial kettle and
slowly turns, the air warping slightly around him.]

[His face begins to split vertically, with all the grace

of a melon in a philosophy lecture. On the left:
Pennywise, in full gory, gum-bleeding, balloon-
wielding glory. On the right: Freddy Krueger, skin
like day-old lasagna and eyes that say “Union rules
do not apply in dreams.”]

PRATALIA (wincing):
That is highly disturbing. And I’ve burned priests
alive with Gregorian chants playing in reverse. I
always avoided this kind of imagery in my books.

MR. STEPHENS (deadpan, teeth clicking softly):

Sure thing. Let me slip into something more...
neurotically beige.

[He turns again. Poof. He’s now Diane Keaton as

Annie Hall. Vintage vest. Tie. Soft, confused smile.
Eyebrows knitted in Manhattanian concern.]
ALL (screaming, full Technicolor):
AAAAAAHGH NOOOOO! BACK BACK BACK!

BORGES (spinning in a panic):

She’s going to start mumbling about Paul Simon
and relationships!

DIDEROT (choking on the word ‘neurosis’):

I felt a New Yorker article forming inside my soul!

MR. STEPHENS (mercifully reverting, now back to

the previous horror-state):
Better?

[He stands there, once again vertically split: left half

Pennywise, right half Freddy Krueger. The lighting
dims. The floor sighs in relief.]

ALL (in religious gratitude):

Dear God—much better.

PRATALIA (gesturing vaguely at the air, as if

swatting away the ghost of a turtleneck):
Diane Keaton is always divine. But Annie as a
character? Who would want that egg?

GEN Z (all of them, blinking like confused Siri

units):
Egg? What egg?

PASCAL (already halfway through the popcorn

bag):
Just watch the movie. You can pirate it morally—it’s
Woody Allen.

BORGES (wagging tail with impatient dignity):

Oh come on, let them understand this one. This is
easy. It’s not like anarchists falling through semiotic
tears in narrative space.

FO (stepping forward like a prophet of Vaudeville):

A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says,
“Hey doc, my brother’s crazy! He thinks he’s a
chicken.”
And the doc says, “Why don’t you turn him in?”
And the guy says, “I would—but I need the eggs.”
GEN Z 1 (tentative):
Wait… is the egg a metaphor?

GEN Z 2 (Googling):
No wait… it’s actually about Freud’s theory of
repetition compulsion, right?

GEN Z 3 (quietly sobbing):

We just wanted to understand the spam joke…

MR. STEPHENS’ PENNYWISE HALF (grinning

like an unpaid intern at the meat factory):
It’s all about floating.

MR. STEPHENS’ KRUEGER HALF (voice like a

fork dragging across insomnia):
And if you ever dream about this… give me a call.
First nightmare’s free.

DIDEROT (to Pratalia, adjusting a monocle he

wasn’t wearing before):
We’re reaching peak reference density. Another egg
metaphor and the page will physically curl inward.
MR. STEPHENS (both halves speaking in
disturbing, perfectly syncopated stereo, like an evil
barbershop duo):
So. I'm here. So, Pratalia—

PUFF.

Pratalia vanishes like a magician with a vendetta

against conclusions, leaving behind only a faint
smell of roasted typewriter ribbon and cheap
Chianti.

PRATALIA (voice from the void, omnidirectional,

smug):
Aaaaaaaaand I’m authoring again!

– FIN –
Curtain slams down like a guillotine powered by
narrative exhaustion.

GEN Z (from behind curtain, confused, betrayed,

emotionally constipated):
Whaaaaat? It ends like—
CUE: “DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’” by Journey.

Blackout.

The universe winks.