There was little preamble before the officer began my interrogation.

"Do you admit to-"

"Yes."

It also ended with little preamble.  The officer, having extracted my confession, rose from his seat and left the room.  Oddly enough, I was still handcuffed to the table, so I sat and admired the dull grey paint on the boring walls.  The whole thing looked like it came right out of a movie.  The cheap plastic table and metal chairs, the low single-source light fixture, the 'mirror' to the side.  I smiled lightly at the predictability.

At that time, a second person entered the room.  I had no idea who he was - though he certainly was no police officer.  I decided to name him "the second guy."  The second guy sat opposite me and, checking the clipboard he carried, cleared his throat.

"Hello, I came here to ask you about the crime."

"It was pretty awesome."

He glanced up to meet my gaze, frowned, then turned back to his clipboard.

"Specifically, I would like to understand your motive."

"I see."

"Then what is your-"

"I met him three weeks ago.  Friday."

-----

It had been two days since my brother's death.  I saw him alive four days ago - he had invited me over to practice the talk he was going to give the weekend after next.  It was supposed to be about geometry or graph theory or something, but he ended up talking about Kierkegaard the entire time.  When I asked him about it, he said he was "practicing what not to do."  His death barely felt real even now.  I knew that he was dead, but I couldn't associate any emotions with that knowledge.  It was like he would immediately come out and tell me he was practicing for his speech again with a "Now I know not to die during my presentation."

My friends seemed to think that I was in a bad state, so they suggested we go out on Friday, hit up my favorite bar and get totally shitfaced.  They're good guys, even if they're weird as hell.

"Ici!  Viens-tu?  A seat was saved!"

There they were.  The two of them flanked an empty stool, presumably meant for me.  The poet sat to the left, the chef to the right.

"I'm surprised no one took this spot, the place is packed."

"Une mademoiselle attempted this, however, she was persuaded to leave."

"Is she still alive?"

"C'est possible, I have not seen her in twelve minutes."

In an effort to redirect the conversation, I turned left to my yet silent friend.  I continued speaking to the chef, however.

"Is this place no good?  I thought it worked last time."

"On ne peut pas to know his thoughts, no?"

Seemed like he wouldn't be talking tonight - not that I'd ever understood what he was saying even when he did speak.

"Must be rough."

"Quel dommage!  To not appreciate the heart of an artist!"

Heart of an artist, huh?  Knowing the chef, he was probably talking about an actual heart.  His personality was twisted like that.  I was reminded of the time I asked him why he never used guns for his hits, he replied with a "Non, non.  The gun is used when you want someone dead, mais the knife, this is used when you want to kill them."

"Hey, another round - three glasses of the cheapest liquor you've got!"

The poet shook his head and held up two fingers.  The hell?  He usually didn't go for the expensive stuff.  I questioned him with my eyes.  He made steering-wheel motions with his hands.

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"You're the poet not 'the designated driver' so drink up."

Reluctantly, he held up three fingers.

They were both talking about something and intermittently breaking out into bouts of laughter.  I wasn't sure whether the poet decided to use an actual language for once or he had just forgotten his character trait.  Either way, I felt awful.  I caught sight of something strange: a man was hitting on a woman a few seats to our left, or, well, that wasn't the strange part, but there was a tall guy in a suit looming behind the seated one and constantly speaking.  Neither the man nor the woman paid him any attention.  I strained my mind to try and comprehend their words.

"...eyes are the same color as my Ferrari."

"...tried to use humor, knowing full well that she would never believe that a poorly-dressed middle-aged academic like himself would own a Ferrari, much less one of such an odd color..."

The tall guy continued describing the conversation while occasionally dropping in details of the man's personal life.  And apparently none of them found it strange.  I slowly got up.

"Vas-tu bien?  Y'were sleeping for a while."

"Fine.  I'll be back in a bit."

I used the counter and chairs as handrails as I gradually made my way over to the three I'd been observing.  Upon my arrival, two sets of eyes focused on me.  I addressed the man.

"Why's that guy talking about what you're doing?"

"It's because I'm the protagonist."

"Oh.  Alright."

I lumbered back to my seat.  So he's the protagonist, huh?

-----

"I didn't think about him for about two weeks after that.  Then some stuff happened and I killed him a week later."

The second guy looked up from his clipboard and stopped scribbling notes.

"You did not answer my question."

"You never asked me a question."

"I would like to understand your motive."

"That isn't a question."

It was strange that he hadn't beaten the shit out of me.  I suppose I was right that he was not with the police - he didn't even seem to care about the chef.  Oh well, it didn't matter at this point.

"Then, what was your reason?"

"Because he was the protagonist, mostly."

"You murdered him because of what he called himself?"

"Of course not."

"Explain your reason more fully."

"Then I'll start from Tuesday."

"He was murdered Tuesday morning."

"I know."

"Begin on Monday."

-----

It was Monday, almost midnight, but I still couldn't fall asleep.  Rather, I'd lost track of how long it had been since I last slept.  But it was true, all of it - that man really was the protagonist.  The world existed entirely as a stage for his cheap drama, its events the foolish ideas of an incompetent god.  My brother died for this trite story.  I stared at my phone.  The chef was still in Prague, and I wasn't foolish enough to contact him by phone or e-mail anyway.  Still, the protagonist needed to die.  He needed to die before the author understood my intent.

The white light hurt my eyes when I opened the browser on my laptop.  Concentrating on the keyboard while my vision adjusted, I carefully typed "how to get handgun license" into the address bar.  I paused before searching.  Then, I held the backspace key, closed the browser and my laptop before standing up carefully.  I walked to the kitchen while muttering "Non, non."

The protagonist's house was empty when I arrived.  I had not expected this.  According to the narrator, the protagonist routinely works late into the night, however, he is always home by 2:00 a.m.  It was three.  I had no idea where he was, but I knew that he would likely return before six.

I decided to wait in the garage.  I didn't want him to escape to his car when morning came while I was stuck in some other part of the house.  As I sat down and prepared to spend the next few hours in silence, I began to hear the voice of the narrator.

"...refreshed by the cool morning air.  He felt his accumulated stress begin to float away..."

I had already bolted up and hidden in the shadow of the door separating the garage from the entryway.  Keys jangled at the door.  It opened.  The protagonist walked inside with the narrator in tow.  I lifted the knife.  The protagonist passed by my hiding place.  I brought down the knife.  He was screaming, so I stabbed him again.  Then I stabbed him again.  And again.  Once he stopped screaming, I saw the narrator standing around and describing his death, so I killed him too.

It had already been an hour, yet the world still hadn't ended.  In fact, the author didn't seem to be doing much of anything.  It was possible that he didn't know, or perhaps he was trying to somehow salvage the story without a protagonist.  If it's the first, I may as well help.  So I called 9-1-1.

-----

"So you murdered him because of your brother's death?"

"Of course not.  I killed him because he was the protagonist."

"I fail to understand your reasoning."

"Have you ever written a story?"

"Well, I tried."

"I see.  Then imagine you began to write and your entire story went to shit.  What would you do?"

"I would try to understand what went wrong."

"And then?"

"I would fix it."

"I would restart and try for a better one."

He paused for a moment, considering my words.  I had already figured out who the second guy was - like me, he was unconcerned with the other person I had killed, but only with the death of the protagonist.

"It's beyond repair.  If you had any sense, the story would immediately