A Third Possibility

"Why would you want a monopoly on evil?" I asked.

Crystalbrain replied, "Because by having a monopoly on evil, we could make people think we had a monopoly on good."

I responded, "But you didn't actually believe in good and evil and all that did you? I mean, you didn't seriously try to be as evil as possible, right?"

Crystalbrain said, "We were just assuming a role. Other people believed in good and evil, so we would play the role they expected to exist. That is: evil. Except we would pretend to be good."

"That's pretty creepy. You know, it's stuff like this that makes me question whether I should have written you into existence in the first place. I suppose I had questions," I said.

Crystalbrain chuckled, then took a big hit off of his crack pipe. After he exhaled, he said, "Yeah, I think what you were looking for were lies. Lots of lies."

"Lies? Have you told me lies?" I asked.

"I'm not going to tell you. It spoils the fun of the game, the game of messing with your head and completely gaslighting you," he said.

"So by not telling me, you get me to question my sanity?" I asked.

"Precisely," he replied.

"Look, I've been through a lot. I've written a lot of tripe, but you, my friend, you were meant to be special. You had a special purpose," I said.

"Hah! And what might that be?" asked Crystalbrain.

"To show the world a different way of looking at things, even if that view of things is fucked up and maybe bullshit. There's no way I could tell. I just had to put it out there," I said.

"So, yes, you were bullshitting through me, and I had you bullshit through me just as the reader bullshits himself through me," Crystalbrain said.

"Does the reader really have a role in the bullshitting process?" I asked.

"Yes, a central role. The reader interprets what I am, whether I'm an imagination or a real being, a liar, a fool, whatever, it's their mind that decides," he said.

"But that doesn't change what you actually are," I said.

"Even you don't know what I actually am. I'm hidden under layers of interpretation," said Crystalbrain.

He continued, "You doubt that you even created me. You think that your words were as much written by me as they were by you. Why would you do such a foolish thing as write me into existence if I were not toying with a fool? Why should I even bother with someone so helplessly lost?"

"Now you're just being a dick," I said.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself? 'Now you're just being a dick'? You're playing with reality, playing with your own sanity, playing with the Earth itself, with your own life too. Maybe I have a right to be a dick to someone as foolish as you," Crystalbrain said.

"Maybe you do, maybe you do," I said, then continued, "but I suspect that it is neither of us who is the creator of this, that there is a third possibility."

Crystalbrain's eyes appeared and then went into slits, then he asked, "And what might that possibility be?"

"There is someone writing both of us into existence, a third being. Another writer," I said.

Crystalbrain said, "You know, I pretend to be an idiot for you. Don't pretend to be an idiot for me."

"I'm dead serious, someone else is writing us. Someone else is writing you, me, this room. It's all being written by someone else," I said.

Crystalbrain's eyes rolled and he said, "So there is a third 'I'"?

"Yes, a third 'I'," I said.