Quartz: Well, once more I’ve been shunted to the side. Pushed out of the scribbler’s imagination to make way for other characters in a project that was supposed to be published and done with. Watching while others get a new release. Here I am at my montly blog, ‘Secondary Characters Speak Out’ with Sokrat. She’s one of the others.
Sokrat: Now, now, A Symposium in Space is hardly a new release, is it, my dear Quartz? (twirls a sidewhisker in a fetching fashion) Besides you can hardly blame our scribbler, can you? Jason of Nine Star Press asked her for an expanded version of our symposium. Plus, it’s not like our scribbler didn’t want our story to be longer back in 2016. The only reason A Symposium in Space is as small as it was to make the Theory of Love word count, correct?
Quartz: (mutters while his nose and ears turn red) I thought I was the only one who called our creator ‘scribbler’. Besides Paula.
Sokrat: Well, it’s a very apt term, is it not? (regards Quartz with a dark eye, lively with attentiveness) In truth, she is our scribbler, yours and mine, along with every other character she’s ever created. She belongs to us all, does she not?
Quartz: (trying hard to maintain his usual grumpy manner and failing) Do you always answer a question with a question?
Sokrat: Questions are the only true answers. (taps a wrinkled finger against her nose) Each question asked bring us closer to the truth.
Quartz: That’s important to you as a character, the truth?
Sokrat: (dropping her finger to spread both of her hands to either side) Well, I am inspired by Socrates in Plato’s original The Symposium, am I not? Is it so strange that goals would be similar?
Quartz: About that. In the original The Symposium, one could argue that Socrates was the main character. At the very least he ended up taking central stage, while you take a back seat to Phaedra in this story. How does that make you feel?
Sokrat: First off, the original narrative of The Symposium wasn’t from Socrates’s point of view, although you could argue he was the main character or became more of main character as he spoke. The Symposium began as a narrative within a narrative. Glaucon catches Apollodarus of Phalerum and asks him about Agathon’s party. Glaucon and Apollodarus’s dialogue turns into Apollodarus’s account of Agathon’s party after he meets Socrates at the baths. To make her own story more focused, our scribbler tells A Symposium in Space from the first person perspective of young Phaedra. Phaedrus was the name of one of the actual speakers in The Symposium. This was why our scribbler decided on the name of Phaedra for my comely young companion to the dinner party, whom gives me a lift in the Timea to the symposium.
Quartz: (rubbing his red nose) You still haven’t answered the question. (mutters to himself) Such a lovely voice, almost like gravel. The scribbler really outdid herself with this one.
K.S. Trenten: (from backstage) Thank you!
Sokrat: To return to your question, my dear Quartz (cocks her head). I don’t really feel like my position has changed all that much from Socrates. Ultimately, I am an elder, a wanderer, a seeker of the truth, whom encourages others to discover the truth. Phaedra is an enquiring young soul whose path crossed mine at the right moment for the two of us to go to the symposium together…yes, this is something that’s different in the new edition. We’ve only just met in the body of the story itself, which is adapted from a freebie story our scribbler posted back in 2016. In the original published version, readers got the impression we’d been together for a while. We haven’t in the extended version. We meet each other in the course of the plot. Regardless, I’m still delighted to help Phaedra find her way to the truth and for the universe to experience that discovery with her, through her eyes.
Quartz: (trying to glower instead of blush) Aye, you’re a silver tongued charmer and no mistake. I can see why a space pirate decided to chase you across the universe.
Sokrat: Why, thank you, my dear Quartz! Alkibiadea is a good girl and a great woman. Or lifer, if you prefer to use the terminology from my universe.
Quartz: I don’t. You are a charmer, aren’t you? (finally manages a glower) You’ve actually got me curious about your story when I should be pushing for my own.
Sokrat: And might I say, I look forward to your own story, my dear Quartz? (with another fetching tug at the side whisker) Whatever form or shape it may take?
Quartz: (turning red again) Right. This was Sokrat from the scribbler’s A Symposium in Space, currently being expanded into a larger story for Nine Star Press.
Sokrat: (waving to everyone who stopped by to read this) I look forward to seeing you all at Agathea’s dinner party!
Quartz: (his ears turn even redder)
Nimmy Not: (from backstage) He likes side whiskers. Got to remember that.
Quartz: (rubs his nose and looks uneasy)
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