gotta know what you don't know

"Then I started to wonder, Prince. Is Flora a manic pixie dream girl?"

Up until the point of this question, Minoth had been discussing his writing process, and what he'd been observing from his most ardent audience in Haze, lately: what she latched onto, in his work, in terms of themes and topics as well as levels of viewpoint, and what he found had been truly engaging moments versus those that just served to fill in the space between turns of phrase that he'd actually artistically intended.

Was there any crime in just writing what you felt worked best? Well, demonstrably not, but if one were aiming to pursue craft, then one would need some discipline to hand.

Since he knew there would come a time when his critics would be much harsher than even the most incisive Haze on a good day, Minoth did wish to pursue lofty goals. Indeed, he had discipline, via extended bouts of targeted practice. He devoted more time, in truth, to the sharpening of his pen nib than to the honing of his pistols' aim.

Addam loved to listen to these tangents, because he loved Minoth, both personally and professionally, and he loved having glimpses into the playwright's mind that weren't only what carefully coded missives and epistles issued from the narrator's separate character.

This question was an intriguing one. Addam also loved to learn more about his wife from the perspectives of other people, just as Minoth did.

"Hmmm... Well, is she manic?"

"Not that I've seen - but then, I don't live with her." Minoth flashed his best anti-lecherous grin.

Addam ignored it, because he didn't live with Flora either, for the past nine-plus months, so if she had had a chance to become subject to various and agitating wild moods, he wouldn't have seen it. He would only have seen her insofar as she had determined herself willing to be shown. And she kept herself under a firm control.

To the next portion of the descriptor. "Is she a pixie?"

Minoth sighed. Fine, so they'd be literal. "I don't think she has wings..."

If she did have wings, they'd be somewhere south of pure white, and subtle. Actually, they'd be sort of tawny, a blond gold fading to medium brown with unassuming quantities of black and white tucked into the stripes. They certainly wouldn't be airy-fairy cotton-candy constructions that grew out of her back without so much as a suggestion of a practical slit(s) cut into the simple fabric of her dress so that there would be no connected specialized musculature even possibly in place to operate them.

"But is she," and Addam waggled his finger as he stroked his chin, because this was crucial, "a dream girl?"

"I think we both know the answer to that."

Flora, their dream girl. Flora, their perfect piece of pie in the sky.

Flora, the one who merely metaphorically withstood all the travails of the road from afar, because it didn't concern her, because she didn't have to care any more fully than the minimal effort it took in just caring for her two men, who doted upon her whenever they got the chance as if it were a divine natural gravity.

And it was, because Flora defied the normal necessity of logic. At the same time, Flora fit exactly into a classical pattern; she was just exactly as one would expect her to be.

She looked like any young, smart girl of the trades and humanities in Auresco, except that her hair was longer and softer because she was special. Their dresses and coats were brown, while hers were blue and pink, because she was special.

That much was obvious. She had and held no surprises, except for the baby (having which had not been any particular one of her childhood dreams, but she had loved to consider it, with Addam). Hardly any foibles as yet known.

Addam frowned. What, then, drove Minoth's curious, romantic suspicion? "I'm afraid I don't actually know what a manic pixie dream girl is, my friend," he noted. "Would you mind elaborating?"

And Minoth would never mind elaborating at all. "In my estimation, it's - she's - a woman who emerges from out of nowhere to provide direction and meaning to the life of a man who has approximately no redeeming qualities whatsoever, except that he is a human and he is alive. He probably has depression. He probably has a great lack of spirit. He probably seems pretty pathetic, except that she chose him, so he begins to see some color of light in the world, dancing in the stained glass which suddenly has the grace to appear over his head."

Flora? Appeared out of nowhere, or was banished back to the selfsame invisible shadow realm. Flora? Provided color and warmth and spirit to the lives of men who otherwise knew or cared nothing about her, ostensibly. Flora? Quite gracious indeed.

"But, Minoth, are we..."

Minoth looked on, waiting.

"Are we really such no-account men?" Addam, of course, knew that Minoth had depression. If he himself had ever had it, Flora had long cured his.

"I wonder..." Minoth drawled, dreamily. "You're of at least some account, to me. And I'm sure Lora and Hugo think something of you."

Addam leaned closer, ignorant of the ambidextrous digs. "But what does the Architect think?"

Minoth leaned back. "Ah, well. Usually, the man whose presence is blessed by the appearance of the manic pixie dream girl doesn't concern himself overmuch with what God thinks of him. Or if he does, he's bad at it. He's rarely so neurotic as to wrap back around into good behavior, you know."

He pronounced it as if he were delivering Addam a final sentence, and Addam lapped it up.

"So it's alright," concluded Addam. "We're worthy of her."

"You're more than silly, my loves," said Flora, entering the room with uncanny timing and laying her cold palms upon their hunched backs. They had been listing toward each other; now they moved as if magnetized, to her. "I'm sure the Architect can't tell you whether or not you're worthy of me. That's my own decision."

Whispered Addam, "She's defying the sexism of a male author!"

Returned Minoth, "Don't you see, Prince? She can do whatever the hell she wants - and she chose us. Don't you believe she's real?"

Some reasoning, Minoth had, but Flora didn't disagree. "I think I'm real," she replied. "Don't I feel like it?"

Oh, they abandoned the academic and the theoretical in a flash. They kissed her hands, caressed her cheeks, wrapped their arms around her waist and held her in their arms.

Did the supposedly male author like pickles and hugs from big, avuncular men? Did the supposedly male author hold himself to an extreme standard of knowledge and rapport, such that he outshone others' every unconscious expectation(s) and wrapped around to feeling useless, sometimes? Did the supposedly male author relish associations with flowers, earth and nature?

All of these were further questions to be pondered by no-account literary enjoyers who liked to sit in armchairs and play their analytical games, guessing at what all gods thought of their futile machinations.

But, in the end, the supposedly male, yet supposedly female, author had no illusions of ever becoming pregnant. So maybe it was alright, after all.