“Look, I know you’re upset,” the writer said to the woman in red.
“Upset? Of course I’m upset. I trusted you! When you asked me about my doctoral research, I told you my theory about parallel metafictional realities. With all the fuss going on at CERN, you had seemed interested in hearing how a massive 4 teV supercollider beam might allow a bridge to form between real and imaginary worlds.”
“But you said yourself,” the writer replied, “that your theories are speculative.”
“So’s your fiction,” she snorted. “Look, the Higgs boson was speculative until like five minutes ago. Now everybody’s pouring champagne.”
“Those physicists,” he grinned. “They sure know how to turn on the charm.”
Fixing him a withering look, she continued, “Look, it’s just not that complicated. If the field can induce mass in this universe, then when sufficiently disrupted it can induce mass in nearby universes. The key is to find common details between the two worlds. My equations are very clear about that.”
“So what’s wrong with my writing about such a parallel world?” the writer asked.
“You weren’t writing about just any world — you were writing about my world. I told you details from my life, just as an example, and suddenly those details start showing up in your stories. Don’t you think that’s an invasion of privacy?”
“I prefer to think of them as ‘our’ stories. It’s a metafictional collaboration,” he said.
“Collaboration? Hah! You didn’t even know what sweet popcorn was until you met me.”
“Don’t I get any credit?” he asked. “Didn’t you like how I tied in Yoko Ono? Or the whole ‘pataphysical’ angle? And you’ve got to admit the Mickey Mouse song was clever.”
“Please don’t talk about that creepy little rodent,” she shuddered, “You know I have a phobia.”
“Well, technically speaking it’s not you who has the phobia.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well for one thing,” the writer said, “you’re wearing a red dress. Do you usually wear a red dress?”
“Don’t change the subject! I…” she looked down and did a double take. “That’s weird. I don’t even own an outfit like this. It looks just like a dress I saw in a movie.”
“Exactly! And see these people here?” he gestured to the man and woman sitting at the table. “They’re both fictional.”
“Wait, but that means that this place … that you and I…”
He nodded sympathetically.
She noticed the bottle of scotch on the table. “Anybody mind?” Nobody did.