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Today, Jill’s brought Jonathan Mitchell along for moral support. I’m not sure what good he’ll be. I’ve left him as a disembodied ghost through most of the current novel. He can’t figure out the plot or the conflict or even the end. I want to tell him how much I sympathize.

Jill pats Jonathan on the shoulder. “Don’t let our writer get you down,” she says. “We’ll find a way out of this. We have to.”

Jonathan lets out his breath. He can fade in and out of reality at will, but he prefers the solid cushion of my futon to the blank unknown of spacetime.

Great, I think – another Dagny story featuring my apartment. I wonder what she’ll do to it this time. Oh, and guys, sorry, but the futon’s gone.

“Gone?” Jill looks shocked. “But it was soft and cozy and –”

Jill, I say, you’re a cold-blooded killer. You don’t have time for soft and cozy.

“You know,” Jonathan chimes in, “you may as well send a lamb to kill the wolf, for all the good she is.”

Jill looks angry but resigned. Jonathan tries to pat her on the back – she smacks his arm away. Now that they’re sitting on the floor, they seem even more tragic than before. This could have been a romantic pose, except they lack bed or desk or even chairs to sit on. The utility shelves are now the highlight of the room, an oasis of books and camping gear stacked to the ceiling in the corner. This is what happens when writers move their stuff into storage – the setting goes with.

Listen, I tell them, Dagny’s got a weakness –

“Do not,” she says from the bathroom. And then, her voice muffled by the door: “Don’t you dare write in the toilet flush.”

Okay. Wait for it. Oh, she’s washing her hands. A minute later, and we hear –

“I said don’t do it!” Dagny shouts through the door. False alarm, though – we hear the handle jiggle. “Pudknocking son of a goat,” she adds. She’s still bitter about my new websafe standards. She thinks about First Amendment rights. I tell her she can’t be a citizen because she’s never been born.

Jill groans. “You see what we have to put up with?” She leans forward and whispers so Dagny won’t hear. “Couldn’t we just have our own story?” she asks. “No Dagny, no conflict? Just a plain, ordinary, everyone-goes-home-happy kind of story?”

“Oh, he’s writing one of those now,” Jonathan says. “It’s titled ‘Jill.’ It’s so boring he’s got writer’s block.” He ignores the hateful glare from Jill and eyes the bathroom door. Dagny hasn’t come out yet. That can mean only one of two things: either she’s got something planned, or the toilet’s clogged. The distinct lack of flush worries him.

“You nyrfspelunking son of a cow,” Dagny calls, “unjiggle this gad-fer-splankin handle before I –”

Quick, I say, get her while she’s distracted.

“In the bathroom?” Jill wrinkles her nose in disgust. “I don’t want to know what she’s doing in there.”

“Come on,” Jonathan says, “I’ll get the flame thrower. Maybe Dagny’s belched out enough methane for –”

“I HEARD THAT!”

Jonathan rolls his eyes. He’s accustomed to Dagny. He spent most of a short novel with her. But then, he did successfully kill her in that one.

“Yeah, I killed her,” Jonathan mutters. “And you kept writing her back in. It’s no wonder she calls you grape nuts – it might be time you grow a pair.”