fiction: man on a bench

I set myself a bit of a challenge. I gave myself an hour to write a flash fiction 'live' as it were. I had the starter sentence, the rest of it followed from that within the set hour.
I know. You wouldn't think it took as long as that.

Bryntin sat on the bench, overlooking the ocean. This was his favourite spot, a bench set high on the cliffs, looking over towards the opposite sheer cliff faces of the little coastal cove, and down at a small and inaccessible rocky beach a hundred metres below, which made it a good spot for grey seals to haul themselves out for a spot of uninterrupted basking. 

There were half a dozen down there now, a count through his binoculars showed him. Hard to see with the naked eye, as their mottled colourings worked well to camouflage them on the mixed greys of the rocks and pebbles.

"Nice day for it." said the man next to him.

Bryntin jumped up straight as adrenaline flooded his body, now filled with an involuntary tensing and a response that indicated his surprise... 

He spat out his half-sucked mint humbug and exclaimed "Where the BLOODY HELL did you come from?!"

"Well," said the man, probably about 60, greying hair, goatee beard, dressed in a well tailored and spotless white suit that was, Bryntin thought, entirely inappropriate for a walk on the muddy coastal footpath on a showery day in January, "since when exactly?"

"Well...," Bryntin spluttered, "now! You weren't here a second ago."

"Yes I was," the man said, "but I think you were concentrating on looking through those," and he indicated the binoculars hanging around Bryntin's neck.

"But... I didn't see or hear you coming! I didn't know you were there!"

"Ah," said the man "I can't help that can I? Can I only be places if you know I'm coming? Besides, I think I was just dropped in on a whim anyway."

"What?"

"The author. He needed another character for you to talk to, so here I am."

"Still... what?" Bryntin looked confused. This day was starting to get a bit weird.

"Well, look," said the white suited man, who would have to introduce his name soon so it's easier to type the story, instead of keeping calling him the 'white suited man', "I don't want to add to your obvious confusion..."

"I'm not confused," Bryntin interrupted, trying to save face and feel a little more under control.

"Yes you are, it says you are a few lines up. 'Bryntin looked confused', it says."

"Wait... where are you getting this all from?"

"Look, sit down won't you. My name is Morris."

Bryntin sat down on the wooden bench beside Morris, and the author grinned with relief as Morris was obviously a lot easier to type than 'white suited man'.

"Have you ever read anything about scientists speculating that all life, all the experiences you have of reality, the seals down there, the noise of the waves, the screech and the whoomph and the flutter of grey feathers of a peregrine falcon successfully taking a pigeon for it's dinner, all of it is a simulation? Have you ever contemplated the thought that the world around you, the world that you perceive and make sense of with your various sensations and observations of it, are in fact taking place in a universe created to fulfil some greater but unknowable aim of a higher intelligence, perhaps one with the computing power to have all you can see, hear, touch and taste be the results of it creating your actual consciousness... that in fact, it may only be you that is the simulation, that you are in fact the only thing it is creating, that in fact you are just a sophisticated computer program? Or, something else?"

"No," Bryntin said, "and you said 'in fact' a lot of times when there weren't any facts."

"Oh." said Morris, then he and Bryntin went quiet as they sat and took in the view, the tide now rolling in with a slight haze of spindrift as the waves broke. There was a screech and then a whoomph noise, and a few grey feathers floated down from the cloudy sky beside the bench as they both looked skywards.

"Look, Bryntin," Morris carried on, "it's a similar thing that is responsible for me and you. It's called fiction."

"I think you're just making it up," Bryntin said, as he pulled the collar of his coat up against the cold of the January westerly.

"Exactly!" said Morris, who thought he was probably getting somewhere at last.
 
"Making it up. All life is making it up, even the, you know, multiplying yourselves... that's just making more up. When you think you've got your story under control, that's just an illusion. Someone else will be making their own story up and buggering up your illusion. Bryntin, you and I are made up. There is a higher intelligence."

"Well, I call the intelligence into question, if this is all true."

"Do you?"

"Well, yes. What sort of idiot of 'higher intelligence' sets a story on a muddy clifftop coastal path in January, and has a man come along out of nowhere while wearing a white suit? Bloody mad."

"Hmm...," said Morris, then added "Hour's up," and disappeared.

Bryntin delved into his coat pocket and pulled out another mint humbug.

"I wonder if these are out of date?" he thought.

He unwrapped it, shrugged, smiled, and popped it into his mouth.