‘Edgar and Philly laughed as they held onto the wheel of the grand yacht and pushed the handle of the boat forward, sending the boat steaming away from the dock. An explosion sounded behind them and a wave of wind pushed them even faster forward. Count Colossus was done, finished. Edgar and Philly smiled eagerly at each other. One last job, they’d promised. And now they were done. They could finally relax and enjoy life. They couldn’t wait.
“Onwards, to the horizon and then that’s it, old boy,” Edgar said, watching the sun set in front of him. “I’m glad we had this time together… To the future.”
He raised his hand and Philly, removing one hand from the wheel, did the same. “To the future, whatever it may be…”
THE END‘
“I know it said ‘the end’ but since when is ‘the end’ really ‘the end’?” Edgar was sitting on the edge of the yacht, sipping on a very full glass of champagne. He’d already spilled a splash on his shirt and had rubbed it in roughly with his thumb, making the stain even bigger. “I mean, surely there has to be more? Our fans demand it.”
“Maybe they got bored with us,” Philly suggested, standing next to his friend with the rest of the bottle and staring at the silent port around him. A few years ago this port was the busiest place in their world but, ever since they’d returned from their last adventure less and less people had come around. Without a story to tell, there hadn’t been any purpose for their roles and they’d chosen to stay at home. Or they’d disappeared altogether, Philly was never sure.
Edgar hadn’t even noticed the people vanishing—as long as there was still access to oysters, champagne and his watch collection he was happy to ignore everything else. “How could they get bored with us?” Edgar asked. “We were some of the most popular characters in modern storytelling—best friends fighting against all odds to save the day. We’re timeless.”
Philly lifted a judgmental eyebrow. He wasn’t sure if he’d call them best friends. He’d never forgotten Edgar’s willingness to leave him behind in the shark-infested waters just passed Count Colossus’ island fortress. “We’re old fashioned, stuck in our ways, formulaic. Maybe readers just don’t want that anymore?”
“Nonsense. Everybody loves a formula. There’s nothing more human than needing to know exactly what’s going to happen next. No—a writer could easily write a new adventure for us, or update some of our old stories, or… or… well, you know, I’m not a writer but something at least. It’s a waste of our potential to leave us here.”
Edgar rubbed his tongue around his perfect, shiny teeth—a point of pride and a facial feature that always used to be used to describe and distinguish him from other characters around him. They were starting to feel dull—he could feel it, even when he couldn’t see it. Without an adventure to go on he didn’t find the need to go and get them whitened. Who was he trying to impress? Philly? Without their story being continued, all he could do is sit and wait. Sit and wait. By goodness, it was boring.
“Do you not remember the love and admiration we used to get, Philly? People—adoring our names, pretending to be us, dressing up as us. All of that—just gone—whilst the ever-flippant readers move onto whatever else is new and shiny. All of that attention going to something else, something undeserving—We deserve it Philly, don’t we? We’re heroes, it’s the very least we deserve.”
“In all fairness, Eddie…”
“Edgar,” Edgar corrected, annoyed.
“Fine, whatever you want—but, in all fairness, we were left with a fairly substantial sum of money at the end of the last book. We’ve got enough for both of us for the rest of time and more.”
“What use is money when it’s finite, though? Yes, okay, we’ve ‘theoretically’ got enough money to live on endlessly—but when that’s gone? And, ignoring the money—which I’d like to add I never said anything about in my original statement—do you not miss being in the limelight? Being loved and adored?”
“I suppose it was okay,” Philly said, shrugging. Edgar had always been more popular than him anyway—Edgar and most of the other characters. Most readers thought Philly was too grumpy or unrealistic or ‘never grew as a character’. The only character that was hated more than him was Pippin, Philly’s nephew—who even Philly had to admit was irritating to an insane degree. More than once Philly had wondered whether the addition of Pippin had dragged him down to the readers’ least favourite pile as well.
“No, it won’t do. There has to be a way to fix this,” Edgar said, tapping his finger against his chin and taking a massive swig of his champagne, spilling more down himself.
“Forget it. There’s nothing we can…” Philly began.
“I’ve got it,” Edgar shouted, spilling the remainder of his champagne all over the deck that Philly would now have to clean. “If no writer will decide on their own to write our stories, we’ll get a writer—we’ll get all the writers—and we’ll tell them to write it.”
“But why would they? Why would they want to write our story again?” Philly asked as he went across the deck to fetch the mop.
“Why wouldn’t they? They love to write, we want someone to write. Seems like a fair deal.”
“I suppose,” grumbled Philly, not really sure but not really caring either way. If bringing a new writer in meant that he could ask them—okay, beg them—to let him spend some time away from Edgar, he was willing to do anything. “Which writer are you going to?”
“Well, why not the last one we worked with—the one who wrote our last few adventures—Ms R. Cairn. She’ll do just fine…”
—————-
Mrs Rachel Guild looked at the cheque in her hand and groaned. This wasn’t even going to cover the food bills for that day, let alone for all the following days or months after that. More cheques were piled up in front of her, residuals from other previous jobs she’d worked, but they still wouldn’t be enough. She could barely afford the banana sitting rotting in the fruit bowl that her children refused to eat. Despite her allergy, she was almost willing to eat it herself just so that no money would’ve been wasted.
“Is that the latest penny?” her husband asked as he walked through the door, dressed in his best black top, stained after a day waiting tables. “How’re we looking?”
“Not good—the energy companies sent an email. The bills are going up next month,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
“Again? But they’ve already put it up twice in the last year. Where do they think people are going to get this money from?”
“Same place they get these numbers from, I assume. Thin air.” Rachel laughed weakly at her joke but she didn’t really feel like laughing. If they didn’t find a big boost in money soon, she wasn’t sure what they’d do. How much could you get for a kidney these days? she thought, depressed even though she knew (or hoped) she was joking.
“Well, I guess there’s no holidays this year again,” her husband said. “And we’ll have to cut back on what we buy.”
“On what? We already barely buy anything—except food and stuff for the kids’ school.”
“We’ll have to eat more simple stuff, and the kids will have to drop some of their extra-curriculars.” Even as he said this his eyes dropped to the floor, miserable. He was blaming himself, Rachel knew. He always blamed himself just as much as she blamed herself. It was their fault for choosing careers that were so unpredictable—that didn’t pay as well as other jobs. Both their mothers reminded them of this whenever they complained, so they’d stopped complaining. What was the point? It didn’t solve anything.
Rachel decided to change the subject. “So, how did the callback go this morning?” she asked.
Her husband shrugged. “I don’t know. They said they’ll contact me in a few days—but, I don’t know, I’m pretty sure they’re going to go with someone else. Someone younger. Erm—what about you? How’s your latest masterpiece going?”
Hardly a masterpiece, she thought to herself. “It’s—yeah—fine.” Truthfully, she’d stared at a blank piece of paper for twenty minutes before checking her emails—and then she’d seen the email from the energy company and for the rest of the day she’d just sat in her office worrying about that. It’s okay, she told herself. It’s not like your whole family’s livelihood depends on this next book doing well… Oh wait. “I just have to flesh out some details,” she told her husband.
They both fell silent and looked around them for an escape.
The TV suddenly came on in the other room and her husband clapped his hands loudly. “Who’s that I hear?” he yelled. “Is that a little boy who better have done his homework?”
As he left to go to the lounge Rachel grabbed all of the cheques and headed towards her office at the back of the house. If only she could find a solution to all their worries… but she just didn’t know what that could be. She sighed deeply before entering the office. Stepping inside, the cheques all drifted to the floor as Rachel tumbled down into the pages of an open book, lying on the blue wave-like carpet…
There was a splash against the side of the yacht as Rachel tumbled forward onto the deck, rocking the boat from side-to-side. She laid, face down on the wooden floor and grumbled, rubbing her sides miserably.
“Watch your step, Ms Cairn.” Edgar’s melodic voice was loud above her.
She groaned as she pulled herself up to look at the aging adventurer. This again. “Edgar! What do you want?”
“Ah—so you do remember me, good. So, why is it then you’ve failed to write any new stories for me and my friend?”
Philly came from the doors behind Edgar, rolling his eyes at being called Edgar’s friend again. The more Edgar said it, the more he knew it wasn’t true. At least for him.
“What do you mean? I finished your story years ago. You retired,” Rachel said, rising awkwardly to her feet. After giving birth to two kids, and running after three, she could feel her entire body creaking as she tried to stand up.
“But we never retire, Ms Cairn. That’s our whole thing. We live for adventures, friendships and rescuing damsels in distress,” Edgar said, waving his hands dramatically in the air. “And the people, they love us for it.”
“What do you mean, the people love you for it?”
“Our adoring fans, of course,” Edgar said.
“Your adoring fans? Really? Where were they when I released my book then? All I got were complaints.”
“Because they’re fiercely loyal fans.” Edgar pointed accusingly at Rachel’s red, exasperated face. “They want to protect us and their love for us. And now, you owe them—and us—another sequel. The fans demand it.”
“No—no—I am not writing another Philly and Edgar novel. Not ever.” Rachel crossed her hands and looked around the deck. “Now, send me home.”
“You made a deal, Ms Cairn, with your predecessor—that you would take on the gift of writing our stories,” Edgar said.
“Gift? It was a curse, writing that book—visiting this place, everything. And I never got anything from it, not even an apology for leaving it all with me.”
Philly stepped forward, annoyed. “I hate to agree with Edgar, but our land is a gift—even if the story isn’t. And you have full control over what happens here. You’re the writer. You could’ve made it whatever you wanted.”
“Don’t you think I tried? Those ‘fans’ you talk about won’t accept anything new—anything that breaks their precious stories. The people who do like it, if there are any, don’t bother even speaking up or saying anything. What’s the point? You don’t even make enough to live on anyway. It doesn’t matter how much work you did, how long it took, how much you cared about what you were doing—you don’t get paid properly, you aren’t respected and you’re left miserable, unable to write anything original because people just want more of the stories they say they don’t like.” Rachel said all this so fast that Edgar and Philly only heard every other word. Even still, they both looked shocked and had taken a wary step back.
“Yes, well, I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Edgar said. “You will write our story, Ms. Cairn. We’ve not yet moved on from you. You owe us a new tale.”
Rachel took a deep, weary breath—rubbing her head where a headache had now formed, banging like a quick and steady bass-drum. “The only people I owe anything to is my family. I’m sorry, Edgar—I ended your story for a reason. I’m done. The world’s done.”
“No.”
“Yes. Now, please, send me home.”
“No, Ms. Cairn. You can’t go home until you promise…”
There was a flash of light as a blue portal opened behind Rachel. Philly stepped forward, a switch in his hand. “Let her go, Edgar. There’s no persuading her. If she doesn’t think she can do it, we’ll find someone else who can.”
“No, we can’t move on yet,” Edgar said but Philly pushed him backwards, roughly.
“We respect your wishes, Ms. Cairn.,” the grumpy giant said.
Rachel stared at him, confused. When she’d written Philly, she’d been sure that there was more beneath the hard-shell he surrounded himself with but her publishers had refused to let her add a new backstory to him, thinking that the already established ‘Edgar and Philly: Band of Brothers’ audience wouldn’t accept it. They’d only just accepted letting her change the name to ‘Philly and Edgar’—a move that the readers also hadn’t accepted. “Thank you, Philly. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” Philly said, still refusing to smile. His eyes were as tired and weary as Rachel’s, she noticed.
She stepped through into the portal and disappeared.
Edgar pushed at Philly, angrily. “What did you do that for? I had her on the ropes.”
“You heard her. Being a writer just doesn’t pay—all she cares about is her family—”
“So?”
“So? We fix that and she writes.”
“Oh…” Edgar said, with a thoughtful finger on his stubbly chin. “But how do we fix those things?”
Philly frowned and wished he could stop himself from saying the catchphrase that had plagued him for generations, “It’s time for an adventure, Edgar.”
The Literary Onion 