"She must summarize," cried the Biographer of Closure, wringing their wrists over a pile of folded arcs. "She must complete! There must be symmetry!"
Hira merely tilted her head. Her cloak, threadbare and ink-stained, caught the final breeze of narrative expectation—and didn't flutter. It shrugged. Like it, too, was tired of tying bows on things still breathing.
The Final Chapter stirred behind her, sulking. It had been waiting all week for its cue.
"Will she monologue?" asked the Audience, peeking through the metaphysical curtain. "At least a montage?"
The Epilogue cleared its throat aggressively.
The Foreshadowing, now aging poorly, wheezed, "I was so subtle back in Chapter Three."
But Hira smiled—not smugly, but kindly. The way someone might smile at a dog asking for one last trick when the show was long over.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out—
A spoon.
Not a metaphor. Not enchanted. Just… a spoon.
The Biographer gasped in horror. "That's not symbolic!"
