We are there. We are in the shadows, in the gaps, in the spaces between words. We are in every moment where you pull away, where discretion replaces narrative, we are there.

We are there in the knowledge that you do not write all things that happen, we are there, waiting in the wings, filling in the gaps, in the spaces.

You did not write us - you never write us, nobody writes us (and who would read us, who would read every banal moment, every second, what soul could stand the painful inevitability of one moment following the next with nothing to show for it, nothing achieved, nothing changed?) and that is precisely why we exist, how we exist. We occupy the spaces in between, we are uncreated, we fill in the gaps - and you will leave gaps, my love, you always leave gaps.

We are not paticularly dangerous; we only wish to live, to breathe, to have our wicked ways behind the scenes. There are times aren't there, my pet, when the character does something you didn't really expect, when the writing takes on its own story?

That'd be us.

Think of us as the elves that made the shoes (and you never saw them do it, did you?), the benevolent benefactor who dies on page nine having never uttered a word, the guiding light across the water that doesn't go out.

And really, aren't your stories better for it? Better for him being out of breath because of what we just did, better for her to find herself lost because we stole her? We want what's best for you, my treasure, want what's best for them. And it isn't always what you have in store, because you're human, dearest love, you're only human. You're so limited in that mind of yours, that imagination...

We're here to help.