What's an author to do when a character won't stay between the pages?

Frog Spit and Snail Trails

My person waits on the outside looking in. I stand next to her. She’s the instigator. I’m the initiator. She’s the author. Me – I’m the character. Seems backward, doesn’t it?

Just who is this feisty woman that imagined my life? Temptation too strong, I escape the wall of one-inch margins in search of answers.

“Hi, I’m Mike." I peek around the paper edge and say.

A familiar presence – known like an autumn breeze greeting the darkening shadows, she checks her head to the left and turns to meet my outstretched arm. A confident hand joins mine and a friendship awakens with the wordplay of the alphabet.

At ease, she slips her fingers into her pocket; my warm touch still with her. My boyish looks, my clean-shaven face and great butt make her pause. She takes another look.

That was the day I met Cynthia; the creator of me. My genetic DNA a mere twenty-seven letters.

I only knew that I encountered a woman unlike any others and she left me in want of more beyond the distance between A and Z and the dog-ear of a paperback.

Her smile edged with a spark of mystery, her Scottish fuse-box temper, her fortitude of a brick ignited my inquiring mind.

She appears to the outside world open and completely upfront - totally predictable. To me she is absolutely - unpredictable.

Just when I think I know her best she ventures beyond my grasp and I hold my breath. I discover her to be an endless mystification. Women.

She’s an Aquarius. Not that she buys into the stars but she read once that the most compatible match for her is a Gemini. She tells me she really needs me to be a Gemini because I am the only one who will understand her off-the-wall, inside-out-upside-down personality. So a Gemini I am.

A cosmic twin, a two-fold personality. Thanks, Cin. I am strength of character one day and in search of want the next. I am very complex, athletic and in her mind -- handsome.

I think, no, I know, I fell in love with her the day she looked at me, a strand of strawberry blonde hair tucked behind her ear, and asked, “Why do snails crawl up walls?”

“Where did that come from?” I asked in shocked response. “I thought we were having a cup of coffee?”

Chin resting in the palm of her hand she eyed me with a puzzled look. “Haven’t you ever wondered why snails climb up walls?”

I sat speechless.

“Have you ever seen a snail crawl back down?” She challenged, waiting for an answer.

Still, I had none. But then of course, how could I have the answer. She is my designer and she doesn’t know the answer so we sipped coffee in stalemate.

She leaned into the table shelving the thought and announced, “Let’s go for a run."

Running is our favorite time together. When we jog along the trail our thoughts merge. Any tangled cobwebs from the day’s stress drop with each forward motion until our mind races freely. We run in unison. I share my concerns and the depth of our relationship.

She breathes in the crisp autumn air and stops to look underneath a leaf. Bug spittle clings to the underside. She thinks it might be frog spit. “What do I think?”

“Of course, whatever, frog spit it is, but what about my problem?” A slight breeze blows through my fabricated form and scatters me temporarily east to west. I gather my self, adjust my parts and sprint to catch her down the next curve.

She runs across the wooden bridge. It bounces with her weight. She slips past the catwalk entrance her pace unfaltering onto the dirt path.

“What problem, Mike? Aren’t you having fun with me? You still have all your hair and you don’t have a potbelly. Is it the tofu in your eggs?” She jumps into a puddle and splashes muddy water on me.

I laugh. I grab her arm and make her stop. I hold her towards me. “No, it's not the tofu." I know it’s good for the prostate, not that I really have one. I feel the tightness of her muscles.

She looks up to me.

“It's just, damn you, sometimes I wish you'd quit hitting that cut and paste button. Just when I think I know who I am you either cut, paste or worse yet -- you hit delete!"

"Oh, that." She stretches her fingers and wiggles out the writer's cramps.

"Yeah, that." I stomp my foot. A knee wobbles and I pause to readjust.

"Didn't you like your part in the murder mystery?" She studies my rugged jaw, etched with a long scar of the attacker's knife. "All the reviewers gave you two thumbs up and the book club loved you, remember?"

"I hate murder mysteries!" There it is out. I cross my arms and hold my ground, barely. "Can’t I just be me for one day?”

"Out! Out! Out!" She grabs her temples and squeezes. "Get out of my head."

"Don't you get it?" I move to her side. "I am out of your head." I inch closer and whisper, "I'm in your heart now and I want romance. Not murder."

"I write quirky mysteries. Not romance."

A bird chirps in the tree. A rabbit scurries across the trail. We stand vacant of words.

She picks up a small rock and skips it across the water. Hands on slim hips she counts the number of ripples on the water.

A drop of sweat slowly trails down the side of her flushed cheek and I resist the temptation to stroke it away.

"Sometimes cut and paste is the best choice to help us grow." She says.

Hands in my pocket my feet kick the dirt. I turn to stare out across the lake.

“Do you really want me to tell the whole world about when you…” she whispers.

“…You wouldn’t. That’s between us.” The memory of the secret makes me smile and agree best kept on a cutting board. “Okay, so sometimes a little editing is good.” I resolve.

Her eyes twinkle, her face lights with the idea. “Maybe I can add a midnight booty call in the next book. Afterall, Koontz has romance and goblins..."