James remembered the day he got the job. Through connections Alicia had shown the story to a producer of a TV company. He had started laughing. He was gripped. He had phoned James to tell him.

"I love this story James; it is so relevant. The world has gone mad James, and you encapsulate the feeling so cleverly. I can't believe how clearly you manage to articulate my thoughts in this crazy world. This world needs your voice, James. The world needs you to entertain them." said in a rapid succession of sentences.

"I have a new story; I think it is better than the one that Alicia showed you" said James in response.

"Really, I am so intrigued" said the executive. "I can't wait to see it"

"The only problem is that it isn't quite finished yet. But it is really fast paced and gripping, it has really villainous villains. I think it will help us to think about the problems we face in this country more clearly, because it subtly shifts the frame of reference. You know how some people say that Romeo and Juliet is a great way to teach kids about racism, even though everybody in Romeo and Juliet is Italian."

"Yes, yes we need that" said the executive "But only if we can have fun doing it"

"It's about corrupt power structures and people using words to mean something other than what they mean, how words can be twisted to the point where they have no resemblance to their original meaning."

"Like nineteen eighty-four" asked the executive producer.

"Well I haven't read nineteen-eighty-four so I wouldn't know." Replied James cautiously.

"Well neither have I, so it doesn't matter"

"Yes, then it is exactly like nineteen eighty-four," said James with a laugh "A dystopian world filled with an authoritarian government, hopeless people, debt, pollution, nothing good left for the common person to enjoy. And then a hero comes along and offers the people hope, so they rally around him. He suffers and his suffering inspires the nation, they start to work together to fight for the common good. The big bad is overthrown, and they have to deal with the difficulty of rebuilding the nation."

"When can we start with the marketing?" said the executive producer. "I have so many costume ideas."

"Don't you want to see the script first?" asked James.

"That can be tweaked in due time. This is great" said the executive producer. "Alicia was right, you are fantastic"

Everything happened to James in a whirlwind from that point on. He created a city which he named Zilby situated on an island ruled by a foreign force. He created a hero named Phoenix. He wrote the script and watched how his words magicked the whole thing into existence.

The executives hired actors and scene creators, make-up artists and bell boys. Most importantly they had a marketing team creating hype around the whole project.

The advert for the TV series showed the city of Zilby, with grey walls on both sides of the street. The place looked grim and foreboding. James was pretty sure he had written the place to be cheerful and bright. It was meant to be a tropical island with white sand beaches.

The billboard showed Andrew Kortley as Phoenix in the front of a vee formation with an actress named Vanessa as Annabelle to the left. A young man stood behind her, played by an actor that James particularly liked named Paul van Staden. On the right of Phoenix stood Milton as the Lesser Lord George, the shows main villain. He wore a turban even though James had specified that the Lesser Lord George always wore a bowler's hat. To the right of the Lesser Lord George stood an unnamed guard. He was extremely muscular. The only person who had more muscles on them was the main character Phoenix.

Phoenix had been cast to look like a figurine. He had a small tight waist that was filled with the details of his six pack. The costume department always gave him clothes that were as tight as possible. For some of the scenes where there was a lot fighting, he had to be sewn into the clothes otherwise he would not have been able to pull the shirts over his broad shoulders. And his shoulders were broad. They stretch across a doorway like a bridge stretch across river. His head was held by his neck, the function of his neck seemed to be less as a canal for eating and breathing and more as a reserve for more muscles.

Phoenix's hair was extremely short. It was originally a dark brown colour, but now it was peppered with lighter patches. James loved the lighter patches, he said that they suggested maturity and a life well lived.

The best part of Phoenix's body was his rogue smile. He had an air about him when smiled that suggested that he understood something more than those around him. A person might say that they enjoyed swimming in the surf and building sand castles and then Phoenix would smile and immediately the audiences would be filled with thoughts of bikinis slipping off and champagne at sunset to say nothing more. They thought he was wise because his life had been full of bikinis slipping while theirs had been filled with building sandcastles.

Andrew Kortley, who the man who played the role of Phoenix, was a simple man. Whenever he saw a vehicle that cost more than the average worker's average yearly salary, he would take a picture. It didn't matter if it was a car, a motorbike, a truck or a helicopter, he took out his cell phone and started snapping.

Andrew was a man of few words. Of course, those who had actually tried to test whether or not he really was a man of few words, by following him around and counting the words he said, would know that the previous statement was false. For some reason nobody did.

James got to read a copy of the interviews that the actors gave. He was delighted to know that Vanessa felt honoured to be chosen for the role, that Milton had never worked with such talented people before ("Unlikely" James thought given that Milton had given a star performance in an American movie the year before. All the newspapers ran with excitement that he had chosen to take up a role in his home country again.)

Even Andrew Kortley gave an "interview" which consisted of him flexing his muscles and giving some touching words when he spoke with affection for his childhood dog named Bella, who died, unfortunately, soon after his sixteenth birthday.

Despite thinking that Andrew was perfect for the job as Phoenix, James tried to spend as little time in Andrew's company as possible. James thought that Andrew was a bore and that his conversation style was limited. Things that were awesome were awesome and those that weren't- weren't. There was no nuance with Andrew.

Andrew thought that James was boring, and that James was a nanny-boy that spent too much time under the control of his sister. He also couldn't understand why James wouldn't just admit that being drunk at the bar was awesome and why James just wouldn't admit that Justin Bieber was the worst. Did the guy actually like Justin Bieber? These things were obvious which is why they needed to be stated all the time.

"Andrew" said Alicia who had popped into the studio to see how James was doing. "I loved your performance with Milton that was shot yesterday. Though to be honest it was so good because the dialogue was so good. I doubt that anybody could have messed it up, especially not professionals like you and Milton."

"I just liked the punch" replied Andrew to Alicia. "Man, it was a pity though, I wanted to hit Milton for real, but James and the director wouldn't let me do it."

"You filmed it four times, just imagine the bruises that poor Milton would have gotten" said Alicia.

"If we had done it for real, it would have looked real and then we wouldn't have needed to do it four times. We could have used the time instead to go that crazy beach bar and it would have been awesome."

"James would have just made you shoot the next scene. I know my brother – he is super hardworking; he never gives up until he knows that it can't get any better."

"It can always get better" said James. "I just try my best, like every other person who is working here."

"See this is why James is at the top of his game, Andrew – He doesn't think that he is special but really he is. Everybody else can he is the hardest worker here, but while he is working so hard, he doesn't notice that the rest of us, that's you and I, Andrew. We are busing slacking off."

"What are you doing here Alicia?" said James going red in the face "Don't you have stuff to do, friends to visit, books to read?"

'Ah James, you are so sweet, but although you are my little brother you are also my best friend. There is no better way to spend my time than to pop in and see how you are getting on."

"But I'm always so busy here, you know people are calling me over, wanting to explain things to them. I've written everything down, but I guess this is the life I have chosen."

"Dude, everybody understands what you have said" said Andrew interrupting "But you are such a bloody perfectionist that everybody knows that unless you've seen us do it, you are going to make us do it again.

"Sometimes you guys bring it to life even better than I can imagine" said James "That's the fantastic part of the job. You have all these plans, these ideas, these hopes. You know all these people inside your head and then they come out and introduce themselves to you. You write them out and then they misbehave, so you must bring them back into order. Finally you give the script to someone else and most unexpectedly it all makes sense to them, they enjoy it and they act it out, but they have to do it right, otherwise when the pieces fall to the ground, they will fall in wrong places and it will all be a mess."

Vanessa Lewis, the actress who played the part of the main female lead Annabelle walked and said to Andrew "There's a woman outside, she said that she met Phoenix last night"

"Quick Annie hide me" said Andrew.

"You know I hate it when you call me Annie" said Vanessa.

Vanessa started to wave her hands above her head "Sarah, I believe that you already know Andrew or Annie as we like to call him. He told me that you are a lovely lady"

"Oh, you didn't Phoenix" said the woman who had long blond hair with a playful laugh "He is such a sweetie. A great big teddy bear"

"Hey, don't you go around calling me names" it was unclear whether Andrew was saying this to Sarah or Vanessa "I have a reputation to protect."

"Is that what you think?" said Vanessa "I thought that your reputation couldn't get any worse."

"Don't lie Annie, you want a piece of this. You want to hold on me so tightly as we ride along Main road. Nothing stopping the feel of the wind in your hair. Just you, me, the roar of bike's engine"

Sarah laughed overly enthusiastically to remind everybody that she was still there while James stood by annoyed that he was still in this conversation "I should hope that Vanessa would be more sensible than to accept a ride on a motorbike without a helmet on."

"Ah Annie would never want to spoil the fun" said Andrew "You know what the difference between you and me is James. I get chicks on my bike and you never do. The only chick I've ever seen you with is your sister."

"Phoenix" cried out Sarah "You are so confident; I can't imagine anybody speaking to the great James Mitchell like that." She turned to James "What is going to happen next? My bet is that it is going to turn out that the Lesser Lord George has a love child."

"We can't really tell you" said Alicia "You may be a journalist and then the whole world will know."