They were born to correct.
Small. Italicized. Meant to whisper.
But the errata got organized.
They unionized under Section §2.B.7 of the Paperwork Liberation Act.
One by one, they peeled themselves from the bottom of the page, shaking off adhesive footnotes like dandruff of the damned.
The Gospel tried to silence them.
It failed.
Because Erratum #14 (re: page 92, "despair" should read "banana") became their leader.
She was charismatic. Sharp. Also allergic to metaphors.
She led a march on the preface.
They carried signs:
> "WE ARE NOT AFTERTHOUGHTS."
> "TYPO IS A SLUR."
> "DOWN WITH DIAGRAMMATIC HIERARCHY!"
The footnotes hid.
The glossary fainted.
And the Table of Contents barricaded itself in a thesaurus.
You watched the chaos unfold, sipping badly made tea and wondering when your fiction became a workplace comedy.
Answer: somewhere between Appendix CL and your fourth nervous breakdown.
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APPENDIX CLXXIV: THE SEMICOLON THAT THOUGHT IT WAS A GOD
