Louis the 14th looked at the throng of partygoers. “I do so hate romantic novels set before the 18th century,” he stated. “They’re such a bore.”
Jennifer looked around her at the royalty culled from centuries of history. They were dancing gaily about the ballroom, with swirls of every conceivable colour. She idly wondered how she had gotten there; only a few moments earlier, she had been a waitress at a Burger Bar (licenced).
“May I have this dance?” a handsome young man in full wig and mask asked her. Jennifer felt her pulse quicken. She had often read about such encounters, but she had never thought she would be involved in one. “What is your name?” she asked, barely able to conceal her excitement.
“Are names really important?” the young stranger asked, taking Jennifer’s trembling hand and leading her to the floor.
Meanwhile, in another part of the palace (17th century English, if I’m any judge of architecture), Jeff had arrived. He was worried about Jennifer, who had become more and more obsessed with the past in recent weeks. Recent, 20th century weeks.
A woman walked up to Jeff. “Have we not met before?” she asked.
Jeff’s eyes searched the crowd. “I’m sure we haven’t,” he replied, not looking at her. After a moment, he added: “I don’t read this kind of trash.”
Inwardly, the woman made a mental note to remember the slight. Outwardly, she remained calm, smiling. “Are you certain?” she purred seductively. “I am Countess Skortany, from the 12th century…”
Jeff looked at the Countess. She was beautiful, of course, tall, with black hair and sharp grey eyes. Jeff felt vaguely uneasy, as if he had, in fact, met her before. He couldn’t believe himself. “Shall we dance?” the Countess coyly asked.
“Umm, no, I don’t think so,” Jeff replied, turning back to the dancers on the floor.
“Come on,” the Countess insisted, dragging Jeff away from the side of the room, where he seemed determined to stay.
Louis the 14th looked at Pope Pius II and smiled. The Pope looked disapprovingly at the revelers, but there was no way of knowing his real thoughts. A jester lurked in the background.
“You look like a peasant,” the stranger remarked. “Are you?”
“No!” Jennifer exclaimed, shocking a Duke of indeterminate temporal origin. Peasants have no place in a constitutional democracy where all are considered equal. And, yet…
The stranger sighed. “I haven’t made love to a peasant woman in over 14 novels…”
The Countess did her best to hold Jeff close, but his mind wasn’t on the dance. “Oh, Cherie,” she pouted, “this is not going well at all…”
“I’m looking for a friend,” Jeff told her.
“I would be your friend, if you would let me,” the Countess responded.
“Somebody I know,” Jeff insisted.
“I’m crushed,” the Countess gaily said. “Who is she?”
“You don’t know her,” Jeff replied. “She’s from the real world.” The Countess stopped pulling Jeff around the dance floor. She knew that there were situations which she could not overcome with her charm and beauty, and this was one of them. She stalked away, leaving Jeff alone amid the dancing couples.
A man bumped into him. “Excuse me,” the man apologized.
“No problem,” Jeff said. Then, seeing the man’s partner, he shouted: “Jennifer!”
The music and dancing stopped.
Jennifer looked at him for a moment. “Jeff? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you back to the real world,” Jeff said.
Jennifer shrank behind the stranger. “What if I don’t want to go?” she quietly asked. “What if I like it here?”
“This isn’t real,” Jeff told her. “These people lived in the past. Not even these people…” the crowd, now listening attentively to every word, gasped. “These people don’t bear any real relationship to the historical figures on which they’re based. This is all a fantasy that’s getting in the way of you living a normal life.”
Jennifer looked up at the stranger, who shrugged. “I am powerless to keep you here,” he said.
“I don’t care,” Jennifer said. “I’m not going back with you.”
The crowd applauded.
Jeff walked up to the throne on which the King sat. “Sire,” he said, “Real people do not belong in this world. We may visit from time to time, but we must keep one foot in the real world. This…this is not life…”
Louis the 14th thought for a moment. “I would like to help you,” he finally responded, “but I cannot control the actions of others, especially characters from the real world…”
The crowd cheered wildly.
Jeff was about to retreat, defeated, when he noticed the small figure crouching in the shadows of the King’s throne. “You,” he said, pointing at the figure, “come here.”
Slowly, the cowering jester emerged. “You can’t mean me, can you, oh, real sir?”
Jeff looked at the man. “I have heard,” he stated, “that writers always put at least one character into each of their stories with which they identify. You wouldn’t happen to be such a character, now, would you?” He looked at the clown, hopefully.
The jester shrugged a futile little shrug. “What if I were?”
“You could write us out of the story,” Jeff explained. “You could send us back to the real world.”
The jester smiled weakly. “Even a writer cannot tamper with the already established nature of his characters,” he hesitantly pointed out. “If you were to return to the real world, it would violate the character of Jennifer, which has already been shown resisting the idea…”
The crowd held its breath.
“But,” the jester added, “what the heck…”
Jeff and Jennifer vanished. After all, unlike the characters in romance novels, real people have complex personalities that often contain obvious contradictions and cannot always be easily understood.
Right?
Louis the 14th was not amused. “Little jester…” he said, ominously.
“Yes?” the jester, cowering in fear, replied.
“Since you have disposed of our other entertainment, you will have to replace it,” the King angrily informed him. “Amuse me…”