Day Four
It was one of these days again in which Gerald just decided to wander around his fiction. It was about noon, so it was pretty easy to navigate, without too many people being on the street as well. As he walked down the street, he crossed his path with Frank, who also decided to get some fresh air.
„Mornin', Frank“, greeted Gerald him.
„Hello, Gerald. How do you do?“
„I'm okay, I guess. Just inspecting again.“
„I see. Well, meet you soon.“
While they walked away from each other, Gerald spotted something weird circa two hundred metres away from him. The closer he got to it, the less he could believe his eyes. That just can't be what he thinks it is...
But it was! It was Frank again, observing a building.
„Frank? What are you doing here?“
„Doing my job. Why do you ask?“
„But... you were... I just met... how did you...“
„Haven't you slept enough again?“
„...maybe?“
Frank sighed. „I think you need to take a break. If it goes on like this, you might become crazy.“
„I think that already happened when I came here the first time...“
„That's not the thing to make jokes about, and I think you know that.“
It was inevitable, though, thought Gerald when he returned. No wonder, after working through the entire night two times within a week, it was a wonder that he didn't have hallucinations way earlier than now.
But it was too early for him to sleep right away, so he just went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of black tea again. While it was brewing he heard his phone ringing. Sebastian was on the line.
„Hi there, Gerald.“
„Oh, hi, Bastian. Already got home from work?“
„If you saw me now, you'd see me nodding.“
„Hey, that's the kind of bad joke I would make!“
After a slight chuckle, he replied: „Sorry, but I wanted to try it myself for once.“
„Say, why did you call me now?“
„I was trying a few times by now because I wanted to ask you if you got time to go to the cinema.“
„Time of course. Not so sure about money, though...“
„Don't worry about that. Tickets are reduced this week like it's a sale or something. They probably want to get new customers.“
„It would be a good opportunity to get away from my novel, so why not? Might help me to get something else into my head.“
„Okay then. I'll contact you later via IM, alright?“
„Got it. See you soon.“
Putting the phone away and the cup on the table, he grabbed his script again and scanned the last few pages he had written in a while. The mistake was found rather quickly: Due to his lack of sleep, he hasn't noticed that Frank now had to be in two places at once because he entered the wrong times. He was about to correct it, but then he thought about it.
When he – albeit unintentionally – exploited the rules the story has to follow, this might be a good opportunity to see how the world reacts. Or something like that. Point is, two Franks are in the story right now, giving him another reason to visit the story again.
But only after he drank his black tea, of course.
After getting back to the story again, Gerald started to search at least one of the two Franks for now. It didn't take him too long, though, as he found one of them standing nearby a post office. He started to run towards him while waving at the same time.
„Gerald? Back again already?“
It was certain that this was the one he saw second.
„Yeah, just went back home to get some caffeine. Say, can you come to the dead end where we met Anthony? It's important.“
„And why not right now?“
„I have to prepare something first. In an hour then, alright?“
„I will be there.“
So, Gerald went off to find the other one. About half an hour later, he spotted him drinking in a bar. But first, he needed to test if that really is the other Frank. After he went in, he took the sear beside Frank and said to the barkeeper: „A cold beer, please.“
„Will be there in a second.“
Frank just seemed to notice him. „Gerald? You're here as well?“
„Seems so“, he jokingly answered, as he grabbed the beer the barkeeper just put in front of him. „Say, could it be that you've got time to come to the place where you introduced Anthony to me?“
„When?“
„In half an hour. Gotta do some preperation first, though.“
„Don't worry. I got nothing to do today.“
„Perfect.“
He drank the beer in one go before saying goodbye to Frank and making his way to the dead end. As the barkeeper watched him leaving, he asked the detective: „Did he just leave without paying?“
„Do you even matter about the payment?“
„True again.“
Later on, Gerald was waiting under the streetlight in the dead end for the two Franks to show up.
„I wonder how they will react while seeing each other...“
Funnily enough they both appeared at the same time, standing beside each other so that it looked like watching somebody with a mirror to his side.
„Oh, I see. You've already met each other.“
They looked confused at him at asked: „Met who?“
„Haven't you realised already? Just... turn around.“
As they looked each other in the eyes, he thought they'd finally catch on. But all he got as a reply was:
„What should be so interesting about that?“ both of them said at the same time. It started to fell rather disturbing.
„Don't tell me you can't see each other.“
„See who?“
Gerald started to lose his patience. „Frank, I don't know to make it even clearer without spelling it out for you.“
„Then why don't you just do it?“
„Because I know now that you won't believe me under these circumstances.“
„Try anyway.“
The writer with the messy hair sighed.
„You exist twice even though I haven't explitcitly written it that way.“
The two of them blankstared at Gerald for a few seconds before laughing out loud.
„Oh, Gerald, haven't I told you that you should get more sleep?“
He wished that he could just slap them right away, but it would have any use.
„You know what? Forget what I said. This is getting us nowhere.“
„Oh, Gerald, there's no need to get so grumpy about it...“
But he didn't hear them anymore because he already left.
He wasn't far away from the bar where he met the first Frank, as he came across Anthony.
„Hello, Gerald. Have you seen Frank lately? I need to meet him again because I got some juicy news for him...“
„You better wait until I make it one Frank again.“
The informant just tilted his head and asked: „What?“
„I'll explain it to you when you follow me into the bar, alright?“
„So, lemme get this straight“, started Anthony to summarize after Gerald told him the entire story, „because you lost focus while writing the story, you created a scenario which makes it impossible for Frank to be in two places at once, causing him to duplicate without knowing it and without any direct hint by yours that two of them exist. When you tried to show them to each other, they didn't catch on, because they didn't see each other and you have no idea why.“
„Something along the lines“, he got as an answer by Gerald, as he was taking a sip from the foam at the top of the beer.
„Hmm, maybe I got an idea...“
„And it would be?“
„Well, it's only a theory, but maybe the story is still handling like there is only one Frank because you didn't spell it out that there were two, but thanks to the impossible situation you created, there was no way it could have stayed that way.“
„So the story sort of acted on its own will to solve this issue?“
„That's how I see it. However, because you still handle it like there is only one Frank without completely diminishing other possibilities, there are still two of them that are not able to see each other because they are technically themselves.“
„Lemme just let that sink in for a few seconds“, Gerald tried to stop him before it got really complicated, then taking another sip of his beer afterwards.
„To be fair, I don't really get that either. I think the best thing to do is correcting the issue before it gets even more complicated.“
„I wanted to do that anyway, but thanks for reminding me.“
He then talked a little bit more with Anthony for a few hours, before returning back home and taking his script to make sure that he never got to see two Franks ever again. Though they, or better only he, had a good point: It was no use staying up the entire just so he can continue writing on his stories. He got pretty tired recently thanks to that, and just drinking black tea all the time wasnt a good substitute either. He was about to get himself ready for bed, just when he remembered that Sebastian wanted to contact him around the later hours.
„Just a few more minutes won't kill me, I'm sure.“
Gerald noticed that his friend already contacted him a while ago. That made him slightly worry that he spends too much time visiting his own story. But then a thought struck his mind that this is what some people life to call „self-fulfilling prophecy“, as in „If he thinks too much about it, it will happen even more certainly“.
The message was saying. „Kay, got time on Saturday. What would you prefer - something funny or something with action?“
„Why not both? I heard this Scott Pilgrim movie seems to feature both.“
It took Sebastian a few minutes before he replied:
„I don't know if that movie is running in such a small cinema...“
„Well, if not, try to find something comedic. I need something to really laugh my ass off.“
„I'm looking, don't worry about that. So, how is your novel going?“
„Sorry, but for today, I don't really want to think about it anymore. I'm just about to fall asleep and it drove me crazy again.“
„Writer's block again?“
„If only that, Bastian. If only that.“
„...what are you talking about?“
„Like I said, not today. I haven't slept that much recently. That will probably help.“
„Oh, I see. Good night then.“
