Coitus
by Chris Lang

CURTISS:

(Addressing the audience) Yes, I’m just a character in a story, reciting my lines as they are given. "But how does he know?” you might ask… Because I said so. Do you think I’d make something like that up?! But see here I’ve attempted to explain myself, and surely that counts against the deterministic thesis, for to question oneself must require genuine intelligence. See, if I am just a character, then the reason I've been written to question myself would have to be that the writer questions himself, or, if he be a character, that his writer questions herself and so forth. Thus, ultimately, there must be some intelligence of which I am a part. What part? In the worst case, I suppose I could be a thought…or, rather, a train of thought. A train. Well now that is a disturbing metaphor. Perhaps my questioning does not count against the deterministic thesis at all, for questions, like trains, have no choice in where they go. They always lead, eventually, to truth. There is no consolation is supposing otherwise, for if questions did not lead to truth, then how could I have any knowledge? And without knowledge, how could I call my choices “willful” at all, much less “free”? Well, then, genuine intelligence must require determinism. Yes, I’m afraid I must consign myself again to admitting that I’m a mere character…and, worse now, one without a writer, for how could any writer claim to be more than a character himself? If there is any freedom anywhere at all, it can only be in the choice of whether or not to finish the…

Blackout.