Writer's Block

"There it is!" I said, as I pointed out the window of the car.

"All I see are houses", said the other character.

"Yes, but everyone on this block has the same occupation. They're all writers."

"So... it's a writers' block?"

"Yes."

Thinking of nothing else to do, we got out of the car and started walking.

The first house we came to had a big unicorn painted on it.

"Ooh, this must be the house of a fiction writer", I said.

"Psst, we're not writing a children's book", said the other character.

"Yeah, so?" I said.

"So, you were just going to go around to every house and say, 'Ooh, a fiction writer lives here', 'Ooh, a biographer lives here', 'Ooh, a writer of math textbooks lives here.'"

"No I wasn't." (Check the wording of those statements—obviously I was going to say, "This must be the house of a biographer", not "A biographer lives here.")

"Oh well, let's not take up pages arguing about it. Let's keep walking."

We turned the corner, and, after passing a house with pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln clearly visible through the windows and a house with digits of pi written around the window frames, I came upon a person who I hoped I'd never see again.

"I'm guessing you hoped you'd never see me again", said Ripeto Ripeto. "Hi, I'm Ripeto Ripeto. Pronounce that REE pit oh REE pit oh."

"Didn't your last author—" I started to say.

"say ze wouldn't write about me again? Yeah. 'Annoying dialog', something like that."

"You tried to—"

"narrate the story. Yeah, but I'm trying to stop that."

"Now you're just—"

"finishing everyone's sentences."

Groan. We started walking again.

"Are light bulbs recyclable?" asked the second character, seemingly out of thin air.

"They should be. They're made of glass, and glass bottles are recyclable. Why?"

"There was a dumpster back there that had a bunch of light bulbs in it. Burned out, probably. Wonder if the bottle return thingy at the grocery stores takes light bulbs."

"It might, but that would make this a really boring story. Let's move on."

We walked some more, past a laboratory that seemed to not exist ("ooh, must be science fiction") to a place where there were four randomly placed walls; the last of them seemed to have a huge crack in it.

"You have to be kidding", said the second character. "'Breaking the fourth wall?' I get a horrible pun?!"

Suddenly the fourth wall started burning, and a great voice came from it:

"I am your Author, who has brought you from my imagination to this place."

"W-w-what do you want, oh Great Author?" said the second character.

"Thou hast criticized my ideas. Dost thou think thee canest come up with something better?"

There was no answer.

"Look over there. Sea those light bulbs?—"

"You used the wrong spelling of see", said the second character. "And you're putting punctuation on the outside of quotes, when it should be on the inside."

"SILENCE!" said the voice.

"", said the character.

"That be-eth better. Now, as I was saying, we have a shortage of ideas. Thou shalt not criticizest the ideas there areth."

We walked on. When we were out of earshot of the weird, randomly-placed bible reference, the second character said, "'Areth'? I don't think that's a word."

A random lightning bolt struck right next to us.

"Okay, moving on..." ze said as we walked some more.

"You know what? This is pointless", I said.

"But we have to at least have a conclusion, where the main character learns an important life lesson so it's all prettyful and stuff. Wait, am I the main character?"

"No, I am", I said.

"Okay. Don't do drugs."

"Okay." And we lived happily ever after, and I never did drugs. The end.