But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

                                       Judges 4:21

Well, darling, all the meta reviews have to start with mirroring the story they’re reviewing, don’t they? Adds to the whole drama of the thing. How very unoriginal…

Of course, we know now that it’s a trademark of mine to do strange things with reviews on this site. Or maybe you do not. I will say that I don’t really care either way, to make me come across as cool with a streak of cynicism, like Polly. To be honest, even if the connection to Polly hadn’t been there, I would’ve reacted the same way. Most ‘reviewers’ of this type probably would. Well, except for the cool meta ones that address this fact of course. I would continue going into this spiral of turtles all the way down the fourth wall, but considering it’s the only trick I have up my metaphorical sleeve, like using the word metaphorical at unnecessary intervals, it gets a bit stale after a while. So I’ll have to save it for later.

The thing, you see, is that I’m actually not all that cool and cynical, like Polly. And you can take that sentence both ways. Either that I’m not cool and cynical like Polly, or that Polly, like me, isn’t cool and cynical. And both would be true. You might question how that could be so, or maybe you have figured it out already, and are waiting for me to move on to the explanation, to see if you’re right. So are you?

Er… no.

No, darling. You see, this is a case of interpretation. There is no right. I will soon after this explain how or why, but that’s only how I see it. You might have figured it out differently, not wrongly. Neither did you figure it out rightly, so we can’t all be winners. In fact, no one can, which doesn’t have to mean that everyone does, but in this case it does. Don’t get caught up in those sentences.

Unlike Polly, my reason to act all cool and cynical isn’t because of society. But like Polly, my reason to act all cool and cynical is because of society. It’s the same kind of defense mechanism. Because I’m not all that. But I can act like it, either to fit in more with a perceived group that I see a certain way, or to simply convince myself that it doesn’t matter (you’ve seen an example of that already). That’s not really it I think. It can be, I’m not writing it off entirely, but I haven’t thought about it deeply enough, and frankly, I’m not very interested. I think what I’d rather do, is consider the other reading. What if, like me, Polly isn’t actually all that cool and cynical?

This would firstly require me to have any significant experience with her character, which I don’t have. The only proper Polly story I have done is The Night Witches, and I don’t really remember much about her there. But we can still go off quite a lot from this story alone anyways. Joseph Lidster, who I really love as a writer so far, gives enough clues for context about who Polly used to be. And a whole array of other things.

I’d like to commentate on and analyze this part. About Polly’s life of glamour and glitter, over Hollywood, over surface level, people pleasing and rotting from the inside. It’s not an uncommon trope or theme. But, you see, darling, this scenario here is a very specific one. Not that it isn’t still relevant, because it is, as I have already shown. But this specific version is very based in a time for which I wasn’t there. That doesn’t mean I can’t do all that I’d like to do, but I think it’ll be more truthful and better if I did it by comparing it to something more from my own perspective, to see how it can still relate to someone living in 2025. But I’m not going to do that, because I already did.

FLASH!

And there I was, in 1997. I would’ve been very surprised, if it had actually happened. Luckily it didn’t, so as there was no point to it all, I could act very cool about it, with a streak of cynicism. It was the bloody 90s, can you believe it? I were never there to experience that frenzy, but I already told you that.

It was America, because of course it was. I know you thought of it too. The 90s just aren’t as interesting anywhere else. I could’ve ended up in the 90s on the South Pole, or Australia, but no one thinks of Australia in the 90s. No, it was 90s America, and the sort of 90s America that you see in the movies. It wasn’t real after all, just like those. But just like those, the real America that the fake America was based on was fake too. Made up, not by a set maker, but by, well, make up. It was all quite jarring to be honest. Not a fan.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a bookshop. Bookshops are always my favourite. I couldn’t resist taking another stroll among the rows of bookcases, full of writings that people have poured their hearts and their souls into, so many of those looking like so much pure fun to read, knowing full well I would end up having them simply put on another bookcase, looking at me prettily while I were to be acting all cool with a streak of cynicism on social media, and do everything but read them.

You know, if I hadn’t just about spotted in from the corner of my eye, it would never have happened. If I had just decided, after that string of thoughts, to not go, the incident wouldn’t have taken place. Alas, I did go.

One of the many books that I opened, read a few bits and bobs from, and proceeded to immediately forget afterwards, was a- I don’t remember, actually. Though, what I do remember, what I will never forget, is the lines I read in there. After being intrigued by imagery that vaguely resembled a rose to me and opening the book somewhere in the middle, but closer to the beginning than the end, in case the small chance that I were to buy and read the thing occurred and I were to come upon one of the bigger spoilers in the book, my eyes were laid upon the beginning of a chapter. No, it wasn’t a chapter. The reason it looked different was because it had different formatting, to make it more akin to an image. It was a list, it seemed. It also seemed quite pointless, really. Seemingly a list of things one of the characters was looking at at that moment in the story. Many, on the seemingly a list, were seemingly random things. Random foodstuffs, random sentences, and even a Random Joke.

FLASH!

The moment I read those words, I again was transported. I didn’t even have time to say fake 90s America goodbye. I was floating now. Floating through an empty, white vortex. The vortex was swirling violently, but at the same time, seemed to be completely still. There was no movement to detect, everywhere around me where I looked, complete and utter stillness. Except the white void was screaming, and waving, pieces of tex tearing at the vor, I could feel it in my bones, but could not see it with my eyes. Luckily for me, it wasn’t real, so I could make a cool sarcastic comment, with just a hint of cynicism in it. Then God appeared.

‘ask me to recommend you a prose short trip,’ God said. ‘please,’ he added, for emphasis.

I realized then that this wasn’t actually God.

‘hey there please recommend me a prose short trip,’ said another voice, though I couldn’t place from where.

‘That,’ I said. ‘Do that.’

And so it happened.

I didn’t know who, or what this creature was. Though I did immediately stop calling him creature in my head, because it felt quite denigrating. He seemed so powerful, being able to transport me around and about the universe. But, wait, did he even do that? Maybe he did not. Likely he did not. Maybe he wasn’t all that powerful. Maybe it depended on who you asked.

I was about to ask many a question, but before I had the chance, he spoke to me: ‘just for you owen i choose one that i actually really liked.’ And so it came to be. The choice. It had already been chosen, but it hadn’t yet been revealed to mortal me.

And maybe it was a choice all along. I could choose to not be cynical, not a streak. I could choose to be honest, no need to put up barriers of irony. What is free will but the illusion of choice? What is choice but the illusion of free will? What is fate but seeing bookshops out of the corner of your eye? Maybe they are the same thing. As what is fate but the choice of nature? And if I just changed my definition of free will, then maybe I had it. Decisions to make, decisions had been made. To walk in and to open the book had been events, simply, and not more than that. No, that wasn’t the point, the point wasn’t in the specifics, the structures, it wasn’t literal.

FLASH!

I was Home Again, Home Again. For real this time. Had fate brought me to all those places? How exactly it happened was unexplainable, but that was the point. It had seemed Random, but instead it had chosen deliberately.

You see, darling, circumstance had made the choice. But only one reading of that sentence was true. I had decided that I wanted to think that. Not because it was cool with a streak of cynicism, because it certainly wasn’t cool. It was quite embarrassing, really. From the outside it would probably bring more laughs of mockery, and that would feel bad. But the noise of fireworks could be stepped away from. And there’ll be friends. And maybe, just maybe, that was just it. Even if at one moment it might not seem so, you can be happy, like Polly.

So my friend’s recommendation was read, and I sat down to start writing the review. It took a while, but I think I finally got there.

I finally got the point, so I let you decide what it was.