I kept reading the essay, a little uneasily. It helped to speak it out loud, to hear my own voice going over the syllables.

“Now, the short film in question was Your Favorite Story which was up for an Oscar in 2010, I want to say. It’s a simple enough character piece at the start. Two girls in an apartment–Roommates? Lovers? We never do find out for sure–are discussing their favorite stories, mostly books but also TV shows and movies.”

Turning the page, I kept on:

“One of the girls have never heard of the other’s selections, and neither have we, the audience. It soon becomes clear that while one character is speaking of media that exists in our real world, the other is pure fantasy. But she insists, with specific details in her recollection, they they are real. And what’s more, she’s never heard of any of the others the ones familiar to us as the audience. The short ends just as they consult an encyclopedia to find out who is right.”

Glancing over at the computer on my desk–the modern encyclopedia–I felt a shudder work its way up my spine.

“Which is more disconcerting: the notion that the first character’s favorites do not exist–or that ours in the audience do not?”

At this, I slammed the book closed and threw it across the room, breathing heavily. There was no way. The author had been dead for years, nearly half a decade. There was no way he could have known.

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