"Well that was unproductive."
             "Touche.  So where to now?"
             "While I usually have things under strict control, I have to admit I'm at a loss at what to do with a writer who's lost his mind, got off his rock, and completely forgotten what he's supposed to be doing there."
             "Perhaps we should find someone more competent."
             "Darlene!  We should find Darlene.  Come on, why don't you keep up your narrating practice as we walk."
             " 'Skip and the still-nameless Worflii--' "
             " 'Toad.' "
             " 'Skip and the dwarf with the absurd name in full-plated armor--which either harbored a few plotches of blood or a couple remaining polka dots from Skip's earlier misinterpretation (Skip couldn't decide which)--strode the vifor streets over a period of time that it was completely pointless to bother relaying.  The whole transition was an imposition on any freader hovering about, as it was being relayed simply for Skip's benefit of practicing his narration skills.  It also had the second purpose of a cheap ploy to ensure continuity, because for some strange reason, the hovering friter was wrapping local events around a skeleton plot structure that involved having no break in the scene from the last to the next, no matter how awkward the segway.
             " 'Finally, after a long and seemingly endless walk, Skip and Toad arrived at the office building just fifty feet next door, and entered a small, plain office.  Some sort of chubby secretary was typing at some sort of vifa desk top computer.  She glanced at a clock, whose hands read just under quarter past one.' "
             "Not bad, Skip, but shut up for the moment, would you?  Darlene!  Thank god you're on your shift."
             "A strange comment, dwarf, since I've never left my desk even to pee in the history of the known universe."  She spoke without removing her eyes from her computer monitor, as if the flies who'd just entered might be shooed away with a few words as she was too busy to swat them.
             "Worflii!  I'm a worflii!"  Darlene melodramatically thwaked a small red button on her keyboard while continuing her rushed typing, which sounded like the clickety-click of a racing sleigh of a dozen horses on a titanium road.
             "What do you want, Toad, I'm very busy self-integrating a hundred poorly defined tasks into explanation tables of why they need to be self-integrated."
             "What else do you ever do?"
             "Once this is done I'll let you know.  So what is it?  Oh, good day to you, Skip."
             "I suppose it might be if I had any other to compare it too."
             "What's he talking about?"  Clickety-clackety-click-clackclick.
             "Our acquaintance Skip has kindly decided to loose his mind on the day on the day he's supposed to submit his first frwoa novel to the Developing Arts Council, causing me to clear my schedule for the day and help him out, as if I don't have anything better to do."
             "Faking."  Clacketyclickclick-clack-clack-clack-clack.
             "I don't think so.  He didn't have the art of deception down very well before, never mind improvisation, and he was trying so diligently to improve both.  It's unlikely he could hit such a sudden breakthrough in both skills to be able to carry on a farce of this magnitude.  Also, being unkind enough to thrust the task of fixing this up on me is entirely unlike him."
             "He must have decided the skill of deception would be most useful if no one had any idea he was capable of it, and began lying about his progress.  Then he developed harmonizing his improv skills along with them, continuously concealing both.  As to his morals, they don't surpass his ego, and he probably considers the artistic progress of an all-important friter secondary to abusing the generosity of a close friend.  He is in fact clever, so if he's planned the whole thing well enough, you'll never even find out that he's screwing you over." Clackclacklacklickclack.
             "And yet, I don't think the precedence ratio of his ego to his morality surpasses that of your ego to your pessimism."
             "Touche.  So is this why you've come?  To see if I'd care enough about either of your dilemmas to raise a finger off my keyboard to help you out?"  Clickcliklack.
             " 'Darlene's rudeness and frantic typing were both a little much so even for her, which indicated to Skip that something else important had recently come to her attention and irritated her.' "
             "How rhetorically intuitive."
             "Of course that's why we're here.  Now can you do anything to help us or not?"
             "Absolutely not.  Our local frwoa budget is still plummeting.  We initially thought we'd have to begin cutting blockbuster movies down to tv miniseries, and book chapters down to half their size, but now we're down to reducing the former to mere ten-minute independent film student projects, and the latter down to loose pages and unrevised paragraphs.  They might as well be down to letters or pixils for anyone in financing cares.  And since you've been in the office quite long enough to comprise a short scene--and are probably well over a page in any prose frwoa hovering about--it's about time you left before it becomes a longer one and taxes the budget."
             " 'This seemed to begin explaining the feeling Skip had had just outside, who now frowned in confusion as to what a frwoa or movie or miniseries even was exactly.  The worflii continued oblivious to Skip's momentary dilemma, and to the surreal fact that Skip had predicted that he would speak before he even did so.' "
             "What if we simply paused and resumed our dialogue in a few moments?"
             "Out of the question.  Now get going.  When I have a spare moment I'll run a couple searches see if there's anything I can do to help, if only to be rid of the potential monotony of these scenes keeping up all day long.  Now shoo."

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