The mock-up meat went, the mead flew, and the two of us settled in for a late night of disputations.

“I understand your concerns, of course,” I informed her politely. “Your worry is that if our principles for the investigation of perceptible phenomena are not consonant one with the other, then they risk contradicting, threatening our empirical activities.”

The pixie slapped the table in enthusiasm. “Precisely! We have two situations - situations involving empirical descriptions of verisimilar phenomena - and you would employ two distinct principles in the analysis of each, depending on the conclusion you desire to bring about. The discrepancy is unsustainable, its publication discreditable to that form of scholarship which is concerned with the search for truth, and not merely the retrojection of justifications for that which we believe to be true.”

“I resent the accusation of partiality,” I sniffed, not altogether upset - for this was not our first rumpus, and she had earlier justly rebuked me for exactly the same fault. “Unlike the similar case - say, for something we know exists, like plants - we know that human beings do not really exist, but merely appear as if they do. Accordingly, I am justified in explaining the inexistence of humans according to arguments invented for this very purpose.”

“Accordingly? It has been too long since you studied logic, my friend; I suggest you reread your Lewis Carroll. You’ve leapt from one statement to another, and ignored the statement which ought to connect the two — Why your principle? Why not another, entirely different one? And what about our knowledge of the inexistence of humans - knowledge whose origin we have not yet made clear - leads us to posit a psychic account of them in the first place?”

“Well, if we know humans don’t exist, but merely appear as if they do, does it not then follow as a possibility - perhaps even a probability, in the emphatic sense of ‘what is likely’ - that this appearance exists only in our minds?”

The pixie was unimpressed, though she took a bite of her Barnacle Goose dessert before speaking her mind. “Well it’s a possibility - it’s likely that - oh, you know, it could be - maybe - and so on and suchlike and such equally facile nonsense. Do not invoke possibilities in the face of what is seen and known. No, humans are there; and if we want to explain why, precisely, that is a mistake, we ought to explain why it is a mistake with respect to their being-there. Now, you and I know the truth and are in rough agreement; the question, however, is how this truth is to be derived.”

Once more we had returned to the crucial impasse - the point on which we had met, and diverged. She insisted that humans were there, and any explanations as to why this perception was illusory must first start with an acknowledgement of this fact; I, for my part, held that the appearance of humans was merely illusory in the first place, and therefore no explanation was required for humans, whether as a category or in specific instances.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We could not revolve one around the other forever, though, and having failed to settle our disagreement in either the usual manner (with fists) or the unusual one (with words) there remained but one road for us to travel: namely, we would prove which one of us was correct by means of demonstration.

Our quest, then, was a simple one: to discover the finest argument against the existence of human beings; or, as the undead unicorn Anselm of Canter-Bury had it, “That proof than which no greater can be conceived.”

***

“So this is a story about an academic argument?” I inquired, grunting a little as I finished digging a hole for the corpse of the rabbit. The vampire, much to my distress, had handed me the shovel - in spite of my protestations that I was not supposed to touch it - and with an apologetic remark about ‘he who is paid, does the work,’ had returned to uselessly watching.

“No, this is a story about an adventure - an adventure occasioned by an academic argument,” the vampire replied. “The parameters of our dispute were set, the contours dictated. We were to leave the university in which we had conducted our research in (relative) peace, and travel the land in search of the finest argument for our respective positions.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” I said, as I carefully lowered the rabbit’s corpse into the hole (or, at least, the half dozen disconnected bits I’d been able to find). Beside me the ghost of the rabbit put its paws together in prayer for itself.

“Precisely. So I took my invisible sword-”

“You mean your invincible sword.”

“No, I mean my invisible sword. Anyways, I took my invisible sword - after a bloody long hunt for it, let me add - and then had to bandage my hands, as I’d grabbed it on the wrong end, after which I set out from the university.”

***

Naturally, my first step was to cross the sea of dreams and return to the fields of man, for no human - save those of a pure heart - had been allowed into fairyland in nearly an age; and I knew that if I wanted to disprove humans then I ought to head straight to the source, the humans themselves.

This was not as difficult as it may sound, for some among the spirits would go flying about at night in the skies of man; the fey of the sea still maintained the web of tunnels that lie under the waters; and the trolls claimed access to ancient and etheric nets which, they said, had once been used by so-called man to communicate across great distances.

I, however, preferred to make my journey as quietly as possible - I do not believe it has yet come up in the story, but public belief among the fey is now against the existence of humans, so much so that even my researches into your non-existence were seen as faintly ridiculous - and settled the matter by retaining a Lützelkäppe of my acquaintance to send me across the seas by whirlwind.

***

And then the story came to an abrupt end, for an ear-splitting scream had echoed across the graveyard.