2nd person fiction and You

by `Bringa

You like fiction written in the second person. You may not admit it to yourself, but deep down, you really do. It teases you with its confrontational otherness, its flamboyantly displayed post-modernism, its teeth.

Do not look at its teeth. You do not want to look at its teeth.

Fiction written in the second person and you have a long history of denial. At first, you were sure it couldn't be done. Then it was done, and it was done to you, and you liked it, too, but it was only the one time and you were kind of drunk. It was an experiment, and it was interesting as an experiment, but that was all it was.

Only, of course, it wasn't.

Fiction written in the second person has invaded your dreams, and what's worse, your sexual fantasies. You'd be picturing a luscious blonde, rubbing her rubbables, yearning for your touch, when suddenly a voice would pop into your head, calmly narrating what you were doing: "You are picturing a luscious blonde," the voice would say, "rubbing her rubbables. Hey, wait, where are you going?"

You would go outside because you needed a breath of fresh air and what's the big deal with fiction written in the second person anyway? It's just another person! There's three of them, and just because two of them have been used for centuries in fiction and one hasn't doesn't mean that that third person, second person, is special. It's not like the apple from the tree of life, which you ate in a dream once, offered to you by your mother, smelly and worm-ridden and empty inside.

The apple, not your mother. Well, actually, both.

Fiction written in the second person has followed you outside. You stand there, both awkwardly staring at the clouds of breath coming from your mouths, illuminated by the cold uncaring light of the motion sensing lamp on your porch. You try not to move. Finally, you both speak at the same time.

"I don't even think I..." you start, while Fiction written in the second person  says "You are probably..." at the same time.

There is a pause. Then you get angry.

"You!" you say. "You, you, you! That's all I ever hear from... from you! Why can't you start a sentence with I, like a normal person? Or even he, she, or it, if you must. No, it always has to be you. It drives me crazy!"

"You don't mean that."

"You are doing it again. Oh, great, now I'm doing it too."

"You know, you really mean a lot to me," Fiction written in the second person says, and finally, finally you understand.

"Let's both of us go back inside," Fiction written in the second person says.

"You... didn't have to use that first person pronoun there, you know," you say, touching its arm softly.

"I know," Fiction written in the second person says, lingering on that first word tenderly. "But I did it for you."