Once More With Footnotes

is, Dogger thought, is I'm externalising my fantasies. Or I'm probably still aslee p. The important thing is to act natural.
     
                  "Well, well," he said.
     
                  Erdan ducked into what Dogger liked to call his study, which was just like any other living room but had his wordprocessor on the table, and sat down in the armchair. The springs gave a t hreatening creak.
     
                  Then he gave Dogger an expectant look.
     
                  Of course, Dogger told himself, he may just be your everyday homicidal maniac.
     
                  "Your final reward?" he said weakly. Erdan nodded.
     
                  "Er. What form does this take, exactly?"
     
                  Erdan shrugged. Se veral muscles had to move out of the way to allow the huge shoulders to rise and fall.
     
                  "It is said," he said, "that those who die in combat will feast and carouse in your hall forever."
     
                  "Oh." Dogger hovered uncertainly in the doorway. "My hall?"
     
                  Erda n nodded again. Dogger looked around him. What with the telephone and the coatrack it was already pretty crowded. Opportunities for carouse looked limited.
     
                  "And, er," he said, "how long is forever, exactly?"
     
                  "Until the stars die and the Great Ice cover s the world," said Erdan. "Ah. I rhought it might be something like that."
     
    -
     
                  Cobham's voice crackled in the earpiece. "You've what?" it said.
     
                  "I said I've given him a lager and a chicken leg and put him in front of the television," said Dogger. "You k now what? It was the fridge that really impressed him. He says I've got the next Ice Age shut in a prison, what do you think of that? And the TV is how I spy on the world, he says. He's watching Neighbours and he's laughing."
     
                  "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?"
     
                  "Look, no one could act that much like Erdan! It'd take weeks just to get the stink right! I mean, it's him. Really him. Just as I always imagined him. And he's sitting in my study watching soaps! You're my agent, what do I do next?"
     
                  "Just calm down." Cobham's voice sounded soothing. "Erdan is your creation. You've lived with him for years."
     
                  "Years is okay! Years was in my head. It's right now in my house that's on my mind!"
     
                  "... and he's very popular and it's only to be expected t hat, when you take a big step like killing him off ..."
     
                  "You know I had to do it! I mean, twenty-six books!" The sound of Erdan's laughter boomed through the wall.
     
                  "Okay, so it's preyed on your mind. I can tell. He's not really there. You said the milk man couldn't see him."
     
                  "The postman. Yes, but he walked around him! Ron, I created him! He thinks I'm God! And now I've killed him off, he's come to meet me!"
     
                  "Kevin?"
     
                  "Yes? What?"
     
                  "Take a few tablets or something. He's bound to go away. These thin gs do."
     
                  Dogger put the phone down carefully. "Thanks a lot," he said bitterly.
     
    -
     
                  In fact, he gave it a try. He went down to the hypermarket and pretended that the hulking figure that followed him wasn't really there.
     
                  It wasn't that Erdan was invisib le to other people. Their eyes saw him all right, but somehow their brains seemed to edit him out before he impinged on any higher centres.
     
                  That is, they could walk around him and even apologised automatically if they bumped into him, but afterwards they would be at a loss to explain what they had walked around and who they had apologised to.
     
                  Dogger left him behind in the maze of shelves, working on a desperate theory that if Erdan was out of his sight for a while he might evaporate, like smoke. He grab bed a few items, scurried through a blessedly clear checkout, and was back on the pavement before a cheerful shout made him stiffen and turn around slowly, as though on