My own life... when did it ever come into play throughout this warped world? Either I was born too normal for an environment so insane or I was born too strange for a world that is basically so familial that you become an anomaly if you don't fit into a category of some kind, not even the category of outsider. If that is the case, however, then this world is destined to destruction, a great man destroyed by his own thinking.

Insane is a word I hate. No matter how often I hear the term applied to me, I feel again and again that it's a label, a verbal asylum where they put people like me so they can have some peace of mind. I've also been called a failure, a heretic, an oddball. How can I be in so many places at once, even if they are proverbial? A man cannot be both insane and logical.

Though through all the labels I've been subject to, I have taken one to heart. Heretic. The roots of the word 'heresy' are derived from the word that means 'choice' in the language of knowledge, Greek. Therefore a heretic is one who chooses, chooses what is offered up to him through rote or the knowledge that can only be gained through personal revelation. I will gladly be a heretic.

Who am I? I am a person, or flesh and bone, as you are. I am a puzzlement of skin cells and blood vessels. My sex has always given me much pause for speculation, for it isn't altogether clear to me whether or not I am a male with the correct anatomy or a female with wrong parts. So the jury's still out on that one. This whole aversion to labels can be a problem in such respects.

As for my name, I don't know whether or not I will be given one. My absentminded creator, a girl who I daresay has been siphoning several of her stock character traits into mine, has neglected to give me one as of yet. I also believe she thinks herself quite clever for going off on this tangent, which is one of the most clumsy attempts at breaking the fourth wall I have ever seen, and probably won't deny it on account of the fact that she doesn't want to be called a pretentious wannabe trying to channel several authors she admires...

It appears I've said too much, for not only is my dear creator getting irritated with me, the nurse has come into the room in which I am suddeny bedridden with a hyodermic needle. Dear dear, my gentle creator really needs to find more original ways to shut up the characters that talk too much for her liking. The least she could do would be to give a smattering of description to the nurse. I mean, that could be the Joker disguised as a nurse holding that needle. Ever think of my well-being before you drug me up? No, I didn't think so.

---

I awoke this morning sweating from a terrible dream. In it, I could see several of the Puppeteer's characters, poor souls trapped between pages. They didn't know that they were trapped, and I could only watch their antics, as though their lives were playing in loops on the multiple screens of the television sets in a store display. What I could particularly connect with was the crazy redheaded adolescent playing cat and mouse with her hapless psychiatrist. She seemed almost an exact duplicate of me, except she has several more character flaws, and she seems unaware at all of her entrapment in her story.

This morning has turned out to be very eventful, as a matter of fact. Today the Puppeteer figured out my name, a name that she was saving for a very special character. Rae Loewe. I have to say that I'm quite partial to the name. I wonder if Rae is short for anything.

The other idea the Puppeteer had while I was sleeping was that she should be the villain of the story. Personally, I think that it's a very bad idea, so full of roman nouveau nonexistent-fourth-wall bullshit that Camus would have cardiac arrest, but apparently I have little to no say about this turn of events. It appears, though, that since I'm the hero and the very person who keeps me in existence is the villain, that the odds are stacked to her advantage. She's a wily one, my Puppeteer, which is why I shall fight her in any way I can.