Fiction or non?

or “Be careful what you wish for”

Father and Daughter sip Scotch on a hillside terrace and talk of many things.

“I grow tired of the supremacy of fiction over nonfiction, Father,” says Daughter.

“Whatever do you mean, Daughter?” replies Father, languidly scratching his scrotum with an elongated pinky fingernail. “Nonfiction represents by far the bulk of the book publishing industry.”

“I speak of linguistic supremacy, Father. The word ‘nonfiction’ is defined entirely in relation to ‘fiction’—this form implies that fiction is the norm and nonfiction is merely its negation. But isn’t it absurd to define reality as not-imaginary?”

For a moment Father silently stares into the distance, where herds of pink and blue unicorns stampede past groves of twinkling lollypop trees as silhouettes of laughing children on magic carpets bob and weave in a deep purple sunset.

“Are you so sure, Daughter?” he asks slyly. “After all, can not fiction and nonfiction be indistinguishable, if the setting and action are sufficiently plausible?”

“Certainly,” said Daughter, leaning forward slightly to reduce the chafing of her blouse on a slightly chapped nipple. “The realistic portrayal of such things as fairies, phoenixes and abominable snowmen can give a fiction story the appearance of nonfiction. Excuse me, Father, there’s a vampire biting your neck.”

“Where?” Father enquires, slapping his neck randomly.

“On the left side. No, a bit higher. Uh, now lower. Lower. There, you got him.”

“Thank you,” Father says, frowning analytically at the bloody pulp of crushed vampire organs on his palm. He dulls the pain of the bite with a pinch of synthetic elf extract before continuing.

“Daughter, I must caution you against your assumption that ‘nonfiction’ in any way corresponds to what you so fancifully call ‘reality’. You are aware that all writing must be considered fiction unless proven to be nonfiction, yes?”

“Of course.”

“But surely, Daughter, you can see that it is impossible to prove that something is nonfiction, because you can’t prove a negative.”

“You mean, just like it’s impossible to prove the nonexistence of the Tooth Fairy?”

“Exactly,” Father replies, adroitly digging a booger out of his nostril and flicking it into a passing wormhole. “And thank heavens for that, because without that tooth fairy money we never could have paid for your braces.”

“But Father, if it’s impossible to prove that anything is nonfiction, then everything must therefore be fiction.”

“Precisely.”

Daughter giggles. “But that’s preposterous, Father.”

Father regards Daughter with a look of frightful solemnity, his face momentarily darkened by the shadow of a passing pterodactyl.

“Daughter, in my work for the United Nations I am privy to certain information that is not disclosed to the general public. I think it is time you knew the truth, if you are ready to hear it.”

Daughter shifts uncomfortably, her flabulent buttocks blupping gracelessly on the smooth seat of her molded plastic toadstool hoverchair.

“I—I’m ready, Father.”

“It’s like this, Daughter. When I say that everything is fiction, I don’t just refer to written matter—because that’s immaterial. The simple fact of the matter is that everything is fiction. Including you and me.”

“Father, you’re imagining things,” retorts Daughter in disbelief.

“You couldn’t be more correct, my dear. We’re all imagining things. Imagining, imaginary things. It’s not something our scientists and politicians are willing to admit openly—we don’t want to incite a panic, after all—but the truth is that sufficiently enlightened people have known for centuries that we are, both factually and fictionally, fictional people living in a fictional universe. So the epistemological divide that so troubles you is not that of fiction and nonfiction, but fiction and metafiction.”

“Metafiction? Fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction?”

“No, that’s the bullshit definition,” Father replies. He pauses to emit a long, low burp that, at its climax, frightens a nearby squirrel. “Metafiction is, in fact, fiction which, to our fictional faculties, merely appears to be imaginary.”

“But that doesn’t make sense, Father.”

“Only if you assume that reality is real, Daughter. But it is unreality that is real. As real as real ever gets, anyway.”

Daughter stares, dumbfounded.

“I know it’s difficult for you to believe, Daughter, but it’s true, and it’s the basis of centuries of human advancement. Indeed, it was the advent of the fiction sciences—or science fiction, if you will—that opened the flood gates of possibility and allowed our scientists to rediscover humanity’s lost mythomagical knowledge, fictionalize it, and integrate it with science to form a viable science fiction construct. And it is by utilizing the best of both the fictional and metafictional worlds that contemporary life has been made possible.”

“How so?” Daughter queries, for the moment ignoring a small but persistent itch in her sinuses.

“Well, Daughter, look at the amazing work the mermen have done cleaning up our polluted oceans. Or our success at rehabilitating problem dragons by giving them honest work in foundries and kilns. Or the giant fusion reactors that combine black and white magic to power the world, requiring us only to dispose of a tiny amount of toxic grey matter. These challenges were met not by fleeing into a childish fantasy world of lightsabers and the fucking Force, but by scientifically addressing the subjobjective reality of metafictions such as mythical beasts and sorcery.”

The conversation pauses as Father and Daughter enjoy the familiar spectacle of Space Station Atlantis gliding across the twilit sky. The gigantic swarm of genetically-modified space leprechauns that protects the Earth from meteors is changing shift, one stream flooding into the station’s zero-G rainbowdromes while another exits.

“Daughter, I know this might be hard for you to believe, but there was a time when the average genetically-modified space leprechaun would have scoffed at the idea of orbiting space stations, calling them figments of a primitive and superstitious imagination. And now they not only live in orbiting space stations, they would consider it absurd to live anywhere else. This is the unreality of modern life. What was once supernatural is now natural; the miraculous merely aculous.”

“Wow, Father,” Daughter says, “I never thought of it like that before.”

“I know, because your generation takes it all for granted, don’t you? Tell me, Daughter, have you ever been sick?”

“Of course not, Father, not really. As soon as I get a sniffle or lose a night of sleep, I go straight to an allohomeopathic witch-scientist. These days they have a spell for every ill.”

“Yes, I’m afraid they do,” Father sighs. He coughs up a small bubble of phlegm, and then, after a moment’s reflection, swallows it.

“But I think I know what you’re getting at,” Daughter continues. “I’ve heard rumours that the over-use of magicine is actually hurting public health.”

“It is, Daughter, because it encourages the evolution of ever-stronger curses and hexes. But people don’t want a moment of hassle or discomfort any more, do they? No, everyone’s accustomed to easy living in a world where we have genies to do our cleaning and fairies to suck our cocks. People think that every little inconvenience in their lives can simply be wished away.”

“Well, that’s not quite true, Father,” Daughter asserts. She repositions her foot, and yelps as the cold, slimy entrails of an inadvertently crushed slug squish up between her toes. “Everyone knows that you can’t just wish away your problems—controlled studies have shown that one must wish upon a star to get the desired effect.”

“Exactly, Daughter. And we’ve grown too goddamned dependent on the stars, haven’t we? That’s why our current unreality is unsustainable. The United Federation of Astronomers and Astrologers has been warning us for decades that we’re running out of stars to wish upon—the stars’ birth rate would need to be literally trillions of times faster to keep up with current demand. But no one wants to admit that our skies are vastly over-wished.”

“But why should the stars ever run out, Father? Can’t we simply wish for a billion more stars to wish upon?”

“That’s what everyone wants to believe, Daughter, but the truth is, that wish has never worked. And we’ve wasted literally millions of stars trying.”

Father pauses. He covertly shifts his penis from one side to the other, and then, immediately dissatisfied with its new position, shifts it back. He continues:

“Soon, Daughter, the world’s superpowers will go to war over the handful of remaining wishing stars. And life as we know it will change forever.”

“I—I had no idea things were that bad, Father,” said Daughter, almost unconsciously raising her arms to ventilate her uncomfortably moist armpits. “It’s a sobering thought.”

“Then you’d better have another drink.” Father says, pouring a fresh round of Scotch.

Daughter laughs. “Oh, Father,” she chides.

And so, Father and Daughter toast and move on to happier subjects, the many threads of their spirited conversation catching the breeze and taking flight like the frolicking pixies in the iridescent sky above, bobbing and weaving and leaving glowing trails of fairy excrement in their wake.