– RECORDING BEGINS

 

INTERVIEWER (young male voice):  I am sitting here in a small roadhouse with someone that I have spent many years tracking down…  what shall I call you?

 

INTERVIEWEE (androgynous voice, probably older): I don’t really have a name, but when I am mentioned people tend to call me Truck-kun.

 

INTERVIEWER: Like the Japanese honorific?  (pause)  I see, so… can you tell us what it is that you do.

 

TRUCK-KUN: Well… I send people, usually young people, to other worlds. (pause) By hitting them with my truck.

 

INTERVIEWER:  That seems excessively harsh, I mean what was wrong with a simple portal door like Narnia?

 

TRUCK-KUN: Honestly, I do not know.  I was called to do my part, as we all are, and this was the role I was given.  Perhaps in the past, I was different, it is hard to know.   I don’t have a past history the same way that humans do, I am a creation of mind and I serve a particular purpose.  What that purpose is, I can only speculate.  

 

INTERVIEWER:  Doesn’t it bother you that your only purpose is killing people?

 

TRUCK-KUN:  The ones I hit rarely have friends,or even real lives, they never have any romance and much of the time not even a steady job.  Afterwards, they are Heroes, Villains, powerful mages, demi-humans, demonic overlords, all kinds of wonderful and terrible things but you can’t ever say their lives are boring.   Most of them learn happiness for the first time in their lives, and even the psychotic ones find a place where they can be as malevolent as they desire.  No, pretty much all of my subjects are better off.

 

INTERVIEWER: (kind of hesitantly)  I noticed that you said that many of them aren’t even human anymore, but I’ve also noticed that quite a few of them start as male, but on the other side they get to have female bodies.  Why is that?

 

TRUCK-KUN:  That is an interesting turn of phrase, “get to have”.   I suppose it depends on the creator of the world in general.  Some of them are transgender themselves, others are looking for an escape from their own lives, some just think it’s cool and/or sexy.   There is a lot that.

 

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I can see why they would be better off in a female body.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to be, say, a cute demon-girl than a boring guy?

 

TRUCK-KUN: I think that quite a lot of people would hate finding themselves in that situation. 

 

INTERVIEWER: (sounding agitated)  Is that so?  Well, hmmmm.   Where do you come from?

 

TRUCK-KUN: I am a fictional device, and not even a very plot relevant one like Sudden-But-Inevitable-Betrayal or Enemies-To-Lovers.   No, I am simply a part of the setup, I do my part and then am rarely mentioned again.   Where do I come from?  Where do ideas come from?

 

INTERVIEWER: But if you are only a fiction and I am talking to you, then…

 

TRUCK-KUN: Best not to think about it too hard.

 

INTERVIEWER: If only I could control what I think about, then I wouldn’t spend so much time daydreaming about… anyway, ummm…  Is there anything about you that you would like people to know?

 

TRUCK-KUN: I guess one thing.   If you find yourself constantly thinking about something, and spend a lot of time fantasizing about it, then perhaps you should consider that there is a reason for that. I send a lot of people to fantastic realms, these were all created by people like you and there is a reason that these are so popular.

 

INTERVIEWER:  People like me? I…I… didn’t create any kind of fantasy realm.  (long pause) 

 

TRUCK-KUN: I highly suspect otherwise.  (pause)  Oh, looks like I have to go, there’s an important meeting that I need to get to soon.

 

INTERVIEWER: Oh, well, it was nice talking to you and thanks for your time.

 

TRUCK-KUN: See you soon.

 

– RECORDING ENDS

 

The sheriff settled back into his office chair.   He had been listening to a recording on a digital recording device, such as you would use for interviews.   This device was in the hands of a young man who had been struck in a hit and run accident, apparently dropping the device just before he was struck by a large truck.   The strange thing is that the truck appeared to have disappeared, he could find no trace of it even with a detailed description by horrified onlookers and the ensuing search.    He thought about the bizarre dialogue and concluded that this must be some sort of prank or art project gone wrong, the implications of what they were talking about made no sense.  Would someone actually kill themselves for some weird theater project?  What was with all the gender stuff and that insistence that men liked being men?   He certainly didn’t.   Oh well, he finished and filed the vehicular homicide report and went home where he sat up all night thinking about the implications of what he had heard.  And wondered.

Elsewhere

 

The first thing that I was aware of was lying face down on a hard surface.   I turned around to see where I was in the dim light.  I was surrounded by a circle of several dozen candlesticks, but the fading embers showed that they were recently extinguished.   I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark when I heard voices.

 

“I can’t explain it, Princess, the spell must have gone wrong somehow.  This certainly couldn’t be the champion that the prophecy was talking about…”

 

“Be quiet, Raztlan.”  I heard her approach me and looked up to see a girl standing over me.  She was draped in many colored clothing that distracted me from looking up into her face.  I was surprised to see that her eyes were vertically slit like a cat and glowing slightly as she looked over my form.   As my eyes adjusted, I saw that what I thought to be tattoos or makeup were fine hairs in a delicate striped pattern that reached up to a W shape just below the cute pointed ears on top of her head. 

 

“Hello, “ she said as she leaned down to me.  “I am Princess Nuara.”   As my brain tried to process the fact that a real life anime catgirl (Nyaaa-ra?) was talking to me, the rest of my nerves were trying to tell me something important.   I sat up and felt my balance thrown forward in a strange way, causing me to look down.   The copper-colored breasts that I saw there gave me chills and I felt myself smiling, really, truly, smiling possibly for the first time in my life.  Lives?   I looked up to see the Princess as I ran my hands across my forehead, not entirely surprised to find small horns just above my brows.  I felt something wrap around my waist before I realized that it was a long slender tail with a cute spade on the end and that it was mine.  A rush of joy rose from deep inside me as I hugged my body with my arms, feeling my new skin.

I was a bit embarrassed to realize that I was fondling myself naked in front of the catgirl and a tall kitsune in a dark robe.  Nuara glanced down at my body, then gave me a smirk as she took in my eyes with hers as the kitsune rolled their own.    I think I’m going to love it here.

Thank you Truck-kun!