T.P.: Fred's career has been an unparalleled success worldwide for going on three millennia…
F.: So I've been told.
T.P.: No culture in sight without some version of you! And your sidekick Izzy-the-Teller here's no Phil Blank either. Granted [brandishes paper-sheaf], he and/or his capital-A Author have filled blank pages by the ream with the words and sentences of made-up stories, some of which've been more successful than others, shall we say, with critics and reviewers and us Mere Readers—
I.: Why, thankee there, ma'm'selle. And welcome aboard, as always.
F. [to T.P.]: So that's who you are! Okay, I get your "third wheel" thing.
T.P. [to both]: What I don't get is how " — 's Story" is you-guys' story. That's my First Question.
F. [to Isidore]: Hey, I don't get that either, Iz, come to think of it.
I.: First Question perpended. Be it noted, by the way, that Feckless Phil there didn't decide to do nothing: His story ends with his inability to decide. You had another question, I believe you said?
T.P.: Did and do. We Mere Readers had expected that once your so-called Ground Situation was established and this so-called Dramatic Vehicle got under way, plot complications would promptly follow, in the form of capital-O Obstacles and capital-A Adversaries, you know? But simply barreling westward like this down a straight flat narrative road is mere Action; it gets us nowhere, capital-P Plotwise. I'm reminded of the distinction in classical physics between Effort and Work: We're chugging along, but nothing's getting done. So my Second Question is, What gives?
It seemed to Fred that he'd heard of those distinctions — Action versus Plot, Effort versus Work — somewhere or other a long while back. They struck him as reasonable, and having no reply to their passenger-or-host's objection, he considered pulling off the road and parking the Herocycle/Myth-mobile while the three of them discussed the matter. Maybe imperturbable Izzy had another six-pack stashed somewhere, to lubricate the discussion? Just then, however — as if their vehicle itself were given pause by Ms. Mere Reader's observation — its engine balked and quit, as had Phil Blank's Corolla's, and like that identity-challenged fellow, they coasted to a halt.
But Izzy the Teller, far from sharing Fred's concern and Reader's puzzlement, seemed merely amused. With a left-handed palm-up gesture at their situation, "Voilá," he said to the pair of them. "Any further questions?"
"Not till I've thought through these ones," said Fred with a frown. "Seems to me we're as out of gas as poor-fart Phil there."
Beaming, Izzy nodded and voilá'd his left hand again.
"What I suppose," then supposed Mere Reader from the seat behind them, "is that Izzy told us the Phil Blank story while we rattled westward just to fill the blank till the Next Thing happens—and to get another story told, in the same spirit as Fred's racking up the DV mileage just for the satisfaction of being on the move again."
Fred: That about says it, for me anyhow.
Izzy: Smiles knowingly while waiting for Third Person to continue.
F.: That's a line of dialogue?
I.: Why not? If Miz Fellow Traveler here can speak the words " — 's Story," as she managed to do twice or thrice a few pages back, then I reckon I can speak third-person stage directions. [To F.T.P. Mere Reader (speaking the words "To F.T.P. Mere Reader"):] You were saying?
In narrative format again, "Asking, actually," that personage replied. "Your left-handed response to my First Question, I take it, is that the Herocycle's running out of gas like Phil Blank's Corolla just as I posed my Second Question effectively answers my First, namely: In what sense does his story serve as Fred's-and-yours?"
Applauded Izzy, "A two-handed voilà encore!"
But "Now just wait a mothering minute," objected Fred. "Maybe he and we both eventually ran dry, but up till then (as has been noted) our stories are different tales for sure. Phil's fate might resemble Izzy's, in his role as my tuckered-out Teller du jour; if so, tough titty for him, and better luck next time out. But it sure as shootin's not my story. Am I right, Miz Mere?"
Declared Izzy before that entity could reply, "You're right as far as you go, chum — but as far as you go is right here. Point being that unless we fall by the wayside earlier on, right here's where we all end up: by the wayside. What's more—"
Eagerly interrupted here Mere Reader, "What's more, Fred dear, as I'm just now beginning to appreciate, our ambidextrous Izzy might be getting more work done with those left-handed voilàs of his than we've been giving him credit for."
F.: Yeah? How's that?
"Fred's Self-Appointed Sidekick beams," here beamed that very fellow, "and with his right hand" — which now held, instead of the Swiss Army knife, a capped fountain pen—"bids our keen-eyed, not-so-Mere Reader to say on."
Adjusting with one forefinger a lick of her helmeted hair, "Yes, welclass="underline" Speaking of herself in third person like Maestro Izzy, what she's just now remembering is that this buggy — which, by the way, since I'm its Wheel Three, I presume you guys to be Wheels One and Two of, in whatever order? — that this buggy, I was saying, isn't just the so-called Hero-cycle: It's also Fred I've-Been-Told's story's Dramatic Vehicle, right? As was established back in what we're calling retrospectively Part One, and unlike Phil Blank's Corolla in Part Two, which was just a lowercase vehicle."
F. & I. [more or less in unison]: Ergo?
"Ergo, guys, when ours ran out of gas just as I happened to be complaining in my Second Question that this I.B.T. tale is overdue for a capital-C Complication to turn the screws on its capital-C Conflict and advance its ditto-P Plot, what that Arresting Vehicular Coincidence amounts to — what we have on our narrative/dramaturgical hands right here right now — is nothing less than dot dot dot…"
"By George!" cried Fred. "A bona fide, gen-you-wine Complication!"
"Georgina," corrected now-demure-but-not-displeased-with-herself Ms. Reader, this time adjusting her rimless specs. "Just doing my job, fellows."
"And doing it well indeed," commended wire-rimmed Izzy.
Heartily agreed old Fred, "Good show!" And to his frontseat-mate then, "So?"
"So let Mademoiselle Lectrice read on," smoothly suggested that personage. "Next paragraph of this story, please, my dear? Followed by the next after that?"
"Uh, excuse me?" Looking around her rear seat, then the forward one, and the itemless landscape round about. "What next paragraph?"
"The one you just recited to us'll do, I suppose, that went Uh, excuse me, et cet? Followed by this one that I'm speaking and you're just now reading. On with our story, s.v.p.?"
Unless his head-nodding was a senior moment, Protagonist Fred seemed to find this proposal agreeable. Ms. Reader Georgina, on the contrary — having retrieved that earlier-flourished script-sheaf from under her butt, where she'd secured it back when their vehicle was speeding along, and fumbling now through its latter pages — protested, "What story? What next paragraph? Last time I looked, this thing here ended with the end of '——'s Story.'"