Title: Ordinary Phantasticus

Author: The Island Hopper

Summary: Rather long one-shot : For the sake of nothing more than contemplation, what if Wonka had never owned a factory at all? What would his life be like? How would he survive out in the world, surrounded by reality, if he never had nor ever would have his sanctuary from the world, i.e. his factory?

Author's Notes: Pure ignis fatuus here, pure fantasy. Written, as most of my fan fictions are, as a diversion to my non-fan fiction writings. No harm, no foul – simple speculation on the eternal question of "What if…?" This is mostly book based, and by the way, this would have taken place in the late 1940's sometime. You'll see why. Wow. Am I really writing another Wonka fic after all this time?

And now for something completely different…

Phantas"tic, Phantastical Phantas"tical, a. – from Late Latin phantasticus, popularized in George MacDonald's Victorian mythical masterpiece, Phantastes.

Quaint or strange in form, conception, or appearance; unrestrainedly fanciful; extravagant; bizarre, as in form or appearance; strange: fantastic attire; fantastic behavior; based on or existing only in fantasy; unreal; wonderful or superb; remarkable.

n.

An eccentric person.

Ordinary Phantasticus

It was days like this that he had to wonder about the state of Things.

Hundreds of typewriters, all lined up neatly in a row, clapped away happily by the humans seated behind the machines. The din created by the clacking never ceased, much like the pale color of the walls and the small windows on the far side of the room never offered any peace of mind (so rude, really). Paper flitted about everywhere, as it usually did. Once or twice an hour a mail boy would rush by, throwing more forms and memos to be typed at the sitting clerks, but no matter how quickly anyone in the place worked, the piles never got any smaller, the typewriters never got any quieter, and the small man hunched in the far corner of the room never stopped thinking about the state of Things.

Thinking, naturally, didn't condone any sort of action. Just because someone dreamed or wondered did not necessarily mean that any of it would come to fruition, and the man had to wonder if the will of the universe was in fact infallible, as he'd always been taught. But thoughts like these, thoughts that things might have been better if he had just done this or that, had long ago become nothing more than a dim voice in the back of his mind. He was somewhat sad to say that, all things considered, he had gotten used to it.

"Wonka!"

The barking voice of his supervisor never ceased to make him jump straight up off of his rickety metal stool and startle him into a semi-panicked state. Wonka, the pale unkempt man in the corner, glanced up to find Bogucki, the typing office supervisor, glaring down at him. "Got those memos typed up yet?" Bogucki said in the voice that always bordered on seething.

"Y-Yes, sir, right here," Wonka said quickly, haphazardly reaching out towards the paperwork piled around him. His nerves, however, got the better of him, and his jittery hand, rather than gracefully grabbing the stack he needed, instead knocked the entirety of his morning's work to the grimy, linoleum floor of the typing office. He heard his supervisor scoff behind him, as he was wont to do every time he encountered Wonka's ineptness. Wonka jumped up, as quickly as he could whilst enduring the stiffness brought on by hunching over a typewriter for hours on end, and began to re-organize the papers as quickly as he could.

"Just bring them to my office tomorrow, got it?" Bogucki told him in a weary voice, more than used to little displays of Wonka's clumsiness like this one. Wonka, still hunkered down on the floor, watched the shadow of his supervisor walk away before exhaling the breath he'd been holding. A moment later, the small man stood up again and began to re-arrange the papers on the small spot of desk that was allotted to him. The desk itself was as long as the room (there were about seven of them, one right in front of the other) and seventy clerks just like him who shared it. Charlene, the gum-popping, barely-post-adolescent brunette sitting next to him, tsked.

"You need to do like I do," she told the watery eyed, confused Wonka. Her chronic typing momentarily ceased and she flicked her wrist in the direction of the small, steel trays she'd brought from home and which she designated her "in" and "out" boxes. Wonka knew it wasn't an accident that she had brought three, and had labeled one her "Especially for Mr. Bogucki" box. Charlene gave him an oily smile. "See? Organization is the key to good work. They told us so in training."

They also told us that sitting under our desks with our hands over our head could save us from an atomic bomb blast, Wonka thought to himself. He gave her a little smile, but didn't look her in the eye. "Yes, yes. I remember," he said in a soft voice as he sat back down to get back to work. He often thought that too much organization could drive a being mad, which meant that bureaucracy would inadvertently end up destroying the world. Wonka took a moment to glance around the room at his co-workers, all lost in their work, all content with trading their time for money. He had awoken earlier than usual that morning and upon looking out the window of his small room had discovered to his dismay that human life as we know it continued unabated, which meant he would have to report in for work. Wonka sighed, rubbed his eyes, and grabbed the next paper that needed transposing off of the ever-growing stack of papers next to him.

Seemingly twenty-five years later, the five o'clock bell rang and Wonka rose from his seat, his back as chronically stiff as it ever was. He wouldn't mind it so much if it didn't seem to be something that haunted him even in post-work hours and on weekends. It was little things like this that never let him overlook the mind-numbing job he had entered about twelve years ago, almost as if his body itself held a grudge against him for not following his dreams and didn't want him to ever forget it.

The labeling that came wrapped around his papers was a golden tin, and he scraped together as much as he could and stuck it in his pocket. As he made his way down the tiny hallway towards the time clock, Charlene bounced up next to him, popped her gum, and toyed with a strand of her hair. "Don't suppose you want to go get a bite to eat together, do you Willy?" she said in her best baby-voice, which, for some reason, women believed men loved.

Wonka did his best not to twitch at the notion. "N-No, Charlene. I think I'll be going home now," he lied.

Her grin only broadened, making Wonka postulate the very real possibility of her teeth being brighter than she was. "You're so quiet!" she tittered, as if she was the first one to have ever said that to him. "Honestly! I've sat next to you for almost four years, and I don't know a thing about you!" Both of them grabbed their time cards and clocked out. "You know everything about me, and I don't know one silly little detail about your life!"

"Yes, you've told me everything," Willy said, trying to keep the darkness out of his voice. "I know where you were raised, where you went to school, even the name of your poodle."

"Noodle!" she twittered. "Noodle the Poodle! My mum suggested it."

"Yes, Noodle."

"Don't you have any pets?"

"I have a fish, Charlene."

By this time, they were both outdoors and Willy silently resented the fact that he was spending time with her but was not getting paid for it. Charlene bobbed along side, ever oblivious. "What's his name?"

"I can't pronounce it," Willy said, scratching his head. "It used to belong to a Russian who lived at the boarding house I live at. When he moved out, the landlady was just going to flush the fish down the toilet, but I told her I'd take it." This was a lie too. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that, though he loathed human company, he was nevertheless lonely, and had purchased Frank the Goldfish for a dime last year at a pet store to keep him company. Not having anything close to resembling a social life, Willy had spent many a night teaching Frank tricks. Frank would now twirl around twice whenever Willy placed the tip of his index finger on the water's surface. For a fish, Frank was pretty smart, and Willy couldn't entirely convince himself that his ichthyoidal friend wasn't smarter than the annoying woman still walking next to him.

"Aw, that's so sweet!" Charlene whined. "Saving a dear, innocent creature from death. How gallant!" Without invitation, she then wrapped her arm around Willy's. Instinctively, Willy gasped and pulled away as quickly as the laws of kinetics would let him. Charlene looked confused for a moment, before her expression betrayed one of hurt.

Though he couldn't stand the woman, a tiny nugget of remorse arose in Willy. "I'm sorry, Charlene. I-I don't really like to be touched," he admitted quietly, standing awkwardly several feet away from her.

Hurt immediately morphed into exasperation. "You know, you'd actually be kind of cute if you weren't so weird, Willy Wonka," she said. She threw her hands up in defeat. "Lord knows I've tried, but I just don't understand you."

Willy watched as she stalked off in another direction and breathed a sigh of relief. He made his way across the busy street to a little pub on the corner that he usually went to for lunch and dinner, not wanting to share the communal kitchen of the boarding house unless he was cooking his candies, somewhat of a culinary habit of his since childhood. He preferred this particular pub because it was one of those rare places on Earth that always seem to be on the verge of closing, and so very few souls ventured inwards. The inside was dark and stuffy; smoke from cigarettes and the exhalations of various men made the place reek of lager, but he found he could ignore it if his usual table was free in the back. The small-bodied, dark skinned barmaid smiled somewhat warmly at him. "Good evening Willy," she said, wiping her hands on a towel. "What're you having tonight?"

"Just a cheese sandwich and some chips, I think."

"Lager, too?"

"No, I don't think so, Doris. Perhaps just a water."

Doris shook her head, laughing as she wrote down his order on a small pad of paper. "I can never talk you into lager, can I? Or any sort of alcohol. You're quite the stoic, Willy Wonka."

Willy smiled slightly but sat down quickly at his usual table next to the fireplace, which was always burning, even in the middle of summer. He noticed there was only one other patron, a youngish-looking man in an RAF uniform nursing a beer. The man smiled at him, but Willy sensed the soldier wanted a conversation and he didn't feel up to it. Instead, he pulled a worn book from his back pocket, George MacDonald's Phantastes. With his life as mind-numbingly ordinary as it was, Willy found he was instinctively drawn to all things phantastic in both literature and music. He sometimes felt, while immersing himself in daydreams, that a clerking desk job and grimy boarding houses wasn't what the universe had in store for Willy Wonka at one time. It was a very quiet, distant feeling, but it was undeniable, and at times when Willy was alone and letting his mind wander through his imagination, he would find silent, unconscious tears running down his cheeks. He felt no anger, though; the magical, the phantastical, wasn't something that existed in the world. As a child, he'd believed differently, but as reality was inflicted young and harshly in his household, the hope of something better had vanished, leaving in its place only a longing for a different life. He supposed most people felt this way, but never bothered to talk to anyone about it. Revealing his soul to another living being besides Frank was unthinkable.

Willy was soon lost in the book and didn't look up when Doris brought his plate of food for him. "Here you go," she said, simply to jolt the strange man from his reverie. He was skinny, and so she always put extra food on his plate, though never charged him extra. For some reason, she felt a connection to the man and felt obliged to help him in any way she could and at every opportunity.

"Oh. Thank you, Doris," Willy said, closing his book just in time to see the RAF man was still watching him. Feeling trapped into being at least quasi-social, Willy nodded to the man. "Hello," he said simply.

The RAF smiled at him and nodded back before turning around on his stool and started to chat with Doris. I guess that's all he wanted, Willy thought to himself happily, beginning to munch his dinner. A moment later, the front door to the pub flew open to reveal a small boy loaded down with newspapers. He spotted Willy in his usual place and hopped over.

"Evening, Mr. Wonka."

Willy looked up to find his small friend grinning down at him. Willy grinned back, as the boy was perhaps the only one on earth he was ever delighted to see, and began to dig in his coin purse for change. "Evening, Charlie. How was your day?"

"Fine," Charlie answered blandly as he placed an evening edition next to Willy on the table.

"People buying tonight?"

"Oh, sure. Weller's Candies just went bust. Everyone wants to read about it."

A small, self-satisfied smile spread across Willy's face as he counted out the change. Willy had never approved of Weller's business practices and had always thought his candies tasted exactly like the steel-coated factory where they were made. "It's just that I know little boys like candy," Willy said, handing the change to Charlie, who pocketed it. "Were you upset to hear that there would be no more Weller's?"

Charlie smiled. He knew this game. "Gosh, no, Mr. Wonka! The candies you make in your kitchen are much better than anything he could make in his whole factory!"

"As a matter of fact," Willy started as he always did as he dug in his small coin purse. "I made some chocolate coated fudge last night for my landlady, and saved a few pieces for you."

From his coin purse, Willy withdrew a small lump wrapped in the golden tin from his work labels and handed it to Charlie. "There you go. Your golden nugget."

"Don't find a lump of gold in a pub everyday, now do you Charlie?" Doris laughed from behind the bar where the RAF man was almost finished with his beer. She said this nearly every day when the small, poor-looking boy came into her pub to sell a paper to Wonka. For Charlie, hearing this meant that all was right with the world. The candies that were given to him almost every day by Wonka were something he looked forward to all day, because Mr. Willy Wonka could make candies that made the world, with all its woes, seem just a tiny bit better.

"Bye, Mr. Wonka. I'll see you tomorrow," Charlie said with a smile as he bounded out of the pub, off to sell more papers to bring a little more bread to his family's table.

Willy finished his meal quickly after that and tucked the paper under his arm as he made his way back out onto the street. The first trash bin he found was the newspaper's new home; Willy could care less about what was going on in the world, and only bought the papers because in exchange he got a few minutes talking with his only friend. In order to get back to the boarding house, he had to pass through a less reputable side of town, full of adult cinemas and crummy dives that seemed to have a continuous flow of people going and coming. Willy sometimes noticed the extreme difference between the people leaving the pubs and the ones just entering; going into a pub, a man looked normal, sometimes even respectable. Those who stumbled out shouted bawdy comments at any passing female and at times tripped to their knees, laughing hysterically at nothing. Sometimes he felt jealous of those laughing.

He tried to avert his gaze from the adult movie theatre he passed, with three neon X's shining through the windows and pictures of scantily clad women plastered on the side of the building. Co-workers (all men) had asked him a few times, when he first started working as a clerk, if he wanted to come along with them to see "the pictures." He would always get terribly flustered and blush furiously; at night, the only thing he wanted to do was go home to listen to music on his scratchy turn-table and perhaps make a batch of fudge or two.

Willy greeted his landlady, incidentally Doris' sister, at the front door to the boarding house and quickly made his way up the stairs to his room. He had just stuck his key in the lock when he heard someone laugh behind him. Not used to having company on the hallway, Willy turned slowly to find the RAF man from the pub was standing in front of door #14 and smiling at him.

"Well, fancy meeting you here," the man said, taking off his cap. "I just saw you down the pub, didn't I?"

"Yes," Willy answered, now quickly trying to get the lock to un-jam so he could take his sanctuary. Too late, he thought as the man approached him with his hand outstretched.

"Dahl," the man said simply. Willy smiled a little and shook the man's hand without looking him in the eye. "Nice to meet you. Did I hear your name was Wonka?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Well, I'm new to the area. Not staying very long. Just got out of the Royal Air Force. Been flying my ass off for the past decade or so. Perhaps you could tell me what kind of nightlife you have in this town?"

"The nightlife I have?" asked Willy, confused. "I don't really have – "

The man interrupted him with laughter. "No, no, Mr. Wonka. I just meant in general. Are there any good cinemas in the area?"

Willy's mind immediately darted to the adult cinema and he fought not to blush. "Well…not on this side of town, no…"

"Oh, that's a pity," the man said, sticking his hands in his pockets, not sounding like it was a pity at all. "Guess I'll have to amuse myself around here then, I guess."

"Yes," Willy said for what felt like the umpteenth time. The lock finally became unstuck and he pushed the door open, eager to duck inside, but the shrieking voice of his landlady stopped him in his tracks.

"Willy!" she chirped loudly up the steps. "Phone call for you, dear!"

Willy tried his best not to cringe at this information. The only person who ever called him was his father, or, if Willy had called in sick for work, the company nurse to see if he was actually sick or if he'd taken a holiday. Willy always thought this was silly; he'd never taken a holiday before, and had nowhere he wanted to visit anyway, so why did that horrible woman insist on bothering him? Sometimes he felt he could get just as sick trying to talk to the company nurse as he could from any cold or flu. He had to be very ill before he'd go to the trouble to convince the company nurse he wasn't feeling well, as she had a nasty habit of counting anything but lying on one's death bed as perfectly healthy and therefore able to work. Sighing, Willy closed the door to his room and stalked over to the lone phone at the end of the hallway, which was shared by everyone on the hall. He untucked one end of his shirt and used it as a kind of glove to pick up the phone; there was always some sort of unidentifiable grime on the receiver that he tried not to think about too much, but which he refused to touch.

"Hello?" he said softly into the receiver.

"Willy?"

Willy closed his eyes. "Hi, Dad."

"Aren't you forgetting about something?"

Willy bit his lip. "Eh…I don't…"

"Dinner tonight at my house? You know, I was asked to a very important function tonight for local medical personnel. That was an important invitation I turned down simply to see you."

He hated it when he could hear the condescension so plainly in his father's voice. It left nothing to the imagination. "Oh, I-I'm sorry, Dad, it must have slipped my mind…"

"Willy, what have we always said in our house? 'The mark of a responsible citizen is – '"

"' – an…an organized mind,'" Willy finished slowly, twirling the phone cord around his index finger. "Yeah, Dad, I'm very sorry. Can I come now? Are you busy?"

Dr. Wonka sighed, seeming to contemplate this. Willy felt that he was being silently scolded. "Well, come on over. We'll have a late dinner."

"Look, Dad, I'm sorry – "

"No, no, don't bother. I'll see you soon."

A few moments later, Willy was pulling his thin jacket around him tightly in the cold night air. Whoops and hollers emanated from nearby pubs as he passed, but he kept his eyes to the ground and didn't notice a slender woman walking towards him until he ran straight into her. He jumped back, startled, as the woman shot him a snarling sneer. She whipped her coat around her protectively. "Trying to cop a feel, are ya jerk?" she growled at him.

Willy blushed furiously. "Wha – no, I – oh, I'm terribly sorry Miss, I wasn't paying attention – "

"Asshole!" she shouted as she brushed past him. Willy took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself, before walking quickly (and carefully) until he arrived at the foreboding brick structure where he had grown up. A brief memory came back to him as he stood on the bottom step, looking upwards. It had been when he was eleven, maybe twelve. At the time, he was going through somewhat of a rebellious stage, the first and only of its kind he had ever experienced. One night, for a reason he still couldn't quite recall, there had been angry words between he and his father, and Willy had threatened to leave. He even had his coat on, he remembered, before something stopped him. Maybe it was the piercing eyes of his father on his back, maybe it was that years of cold silence in the family had convinced him all was impossible, but whatever the catalyst, it was the first time it occurred to Willy – as he stood there in his father's foyer so many years ago – that there was nothing magical in the world, nothing mystical, nothing beyond what he could see with his eyes, nothing bigger or more colorful to life or to the world than he had imagined. It was the first of many small defeats, the first of many small tragedies in his life.

Dr. Wonka met his son at the door, scanning him with his eyes as he always did. Willy unconsciously cowered a little from under the scrutiny. "Running a bit late, aren't we?"

"Sorry," Willy said immediately. "I…ran into someone."

"Come in. Dinner's almost ready."

Willy entered the house and closed the door behind him as his father wandered into the kitchen. Shaking out of his coat and placing it on the coat rack, he then wandered into the front room, warming himself by the fire and glancing at the ancient photographs on the wall. His eyes stopped on a photograph of a tight-lipped, humorless looking woman sitting stiffly on a chair. He shivered involuntarily. Willy wished he could remember his late mother as an angel, a saint, someone who sang softly to him when he was ill, someone who smelled like lavender and warmed hot chocolate for him when he came in from the cold, someone – anyone, really – who cared for him more than his father did. Alas, he thought to himself somewhat woefully, his mother had been one of the coldest human beings he'd ever encountered. She had died of something – Willy believed as a child that her heart had withered away from bitterness – when he was just old enough to remember her, but still too young to fully understand. When people at work spoke of their mothers, he couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy deep in his chest.

"Any girlfriends yet, Willy?" Dr. Wonka said at the dinner table, as the two men sat picking at their food.

Blush. "No."

"Getting a little old not to have a wife at home, aren't you?"

"Um."

"Willy?"

"I-I never really thought about it all that much, I…I don't think I'd be very good at that matrimony stuff, Dad. It's not really my thing."

Not fully satisfied, but not wanting to push it any farther, Dr. Wonka only nodded. "How's work?" he said slowly, a moment later.

"Fine."

"Up for any promotions?"

"No."

Dr. Wonka sighed, leaning back in his seat. "Well. I'm certainly glad I gave up an evening of stimulating intellectual discussion with other prominent local doctors for this," he quipped.

Willy tried not to let his expression betray any emotion. Instead, he smiled weakly at his father. The rest of the evening was quiet, with little words spoken between the two, and Willy left as quickly as was polite, eager to get back to the safety net of his boarding room house. Upon entering the house, he found Dahl sitting in a chair reading a magazine in the common room. "Hello," Willy said to him softly, hoping he wasn't disturbing the man.

Dahl closed his magazine and smiled. "Hello, Mr. Wonka. Have a pleasant evening?"

Willy fidgeted a little with his hands. "Oh. Oh, yes. Thank you." He paused, trying to think of the correct words for a social interaction of this type. "And you, Mr. Dahl? Did you have a nice evening?"

Dahl shrugged. "Well, being new in town tends to kill one's social life for a while."

Willy nodded hesitantly, then turned to go up the stairs before stopping, unsure of himself. He glanced back to Dahl, who was still in the room behind him, smiling expectantly. Willy swallowed hard. "I…I don't suppose you'd like to come up to my room for a while…? I don't have anything to offer you in the way of refreshments, I'm afraid." That's what I'm supposed to say, isn't it? Willy thought to himself. He'd never had anyone in his room before, besides Frank and the landlady, who came in to clean every now and then, whenever the mood struck her. He wasn't much versed in social niceties and tried to avoid situations that warranted them.

"No, well, that's fine," Dahl said, scratching his head. "But apparently you make a mean plate of fudge."

"Oh, yes…" Willy stood helpless for a moment more, lost on what he was supposed to say or do, before finally summoning the courage to say, "Do you…do you want some? I suppose I could make some for us."

"That would be grand!" the man burst. Willy relaxed a little; apparently he'd said what the man wanted him to say. "I haven't had a good plate of fudge since leaving at home. And we can get to know each other. I'm a writer on the side, you know. People interest me."

"That's…nice…" Willy said quietly as bounded up the steps to gather the ingredients he'd need from his room. Dahl watched him with interest; what a curious little man he was, Dahl thought to himself. So quiet, so lost in his own thoughts. A very interesting study, he conceded.

Soon they were both down in the small communal kitchen. Dahl was seated at the rickety little table, explicating his time with the service as Willy prepared the ingredients, only really half-listening. He was shaken from his own thoughts when Dahl said, "And that Doris is quite a lady, hm? Very kind. You know, she didn't even make me pay for my lager. Told me a man deserves a free beer when he's been fighting off Germans for the past six years."

"Yes. She takes good care of anyone who comes through her doors," Willy agreed. He set the right temperature on the stove and sighed. Now he had nothing to distract him; he'd have to talk to this man Dahl. Willy took a seat and clasped his hands in his lap, as he always did whenever he wasn't at work. "Her sister runs this boarding house. They both came here from some far-reaching place somewhere – I can't quite recall where – many years ago. I don't know what I'd do without either of them. And they sing such clever little songs. They make them up as they go."

Dahl's eyes sparked in interest. "Ad-libbers, hm?"

"Yes. Doris even sings about washing dirty lager glasses."

"And that boy Charlie. Is he your nephew?"

"Mine? Oh, no, Mr. Dahl. I have no family. He's just my friend." Willy's cheeks suddenly blushed as it dawned on him how pathetic it sounded to count a little boy, not even related to him, as his friend. He didn't tell Dahl that Charlie was also his only friend.

"And you make little candies for him. That's very kind of you."

"I don't mind," Willy shrugged. His muscles loosened up a little as soon as he read no malice nor mocking on Dahl's expression. It occurred to him that Dahl was not making fun of him. "I get these little tin labels – they're gold – from my work. I wrap up the candies in that tin, so it looks like gold."

"Mm. Carries him to a different mood, doesn't it? Doesn't look like he has much. Maybe your candies are a kind of ticket to a little bit of happiness when there isn't much happiness in the rest of his life."

"Yes. Golden tickets," Willy said, laughing nervously again and rubbing the side of his nose. "I-I like it. Making candies, I mean. I've always been good at it. I kinda wish I could do it for a living." Willy froze; he hadn't ever uttered such a frank statement in front of anyone before, so covered it up with a small, high-pitched laugh.

"Have you?" Dahl said curiously with a kind smile. He continued to stare at Willy for a moment, who shifted uncomfortably under the gaze. It reminded Willy too much of his father. "That's certainly interesting. Any reason why you don't do it for a living?"

"Oh…I'm not that brave," Willy responded sheepishly with a small smile. He looked at his hands in his lap. "I wish I was." There were silent for a moment, and before he could stop himself, Willy heard himself telling this stranger every dream about his life he'd ever had; how he sometimes daydreamed about making his candies for a living, never having to see another soul except maybe Charlie, never being forced into the superfluous duties of reality, how he loved making his chocolate and seeing the happiness it brought to people. He spoke of his colorless, bland existence and how when he was a child, he believed he was destined for better.

"Sounds like you've got a bit of an imagination there, Mr. Wonka. Ever thought about writing it all down?"

Willy again shifted in his seat. He had never told anyone any of this. But the kind look on Dahl's face, so rare in a cruel world, told him that perhaps, just this once, he could let his dreams fall from his lips and not expect rejection. It felt right, like it was supposed to happen this way. "Sometimes I tell Charlie stories. I make them up. He calls them my chocolate stories, because they're always about a person who owns a factory, the biggest one in the world, how he creates whatever is in his imagination. He's even in my stories, and so is Doris, and Doris' sister, my landlady. Everyone I know is, in some way, in the stories. It's all pure self-indulgence, really. I think…I think really all it is, is that I wish my life had been different. Better, even. I wish that I'd listened more to myself than to other people, and that's where all the stories come from, because the man in the chocolate stories doesn't let anyone else influence his dreams, he's very brave, unlike myself…but…but I'd never write any of them down. I'm afraid they're a bit…well, I think it's probably a bit stupid, really. All this dreaming."

"It's not stupid. Not stupid at all. A writer is a dreamer, and dreamers are often times writers. I know at least that much, Mr. Wonka, because I am a writer. And a dreamer."

Willy nodded but didn't respond. Dahl continued to watch him carefully. A moment later, Willy, with his trained nose, could tell that the fudge was about done. He quickly got up and retrieved his treat. "Mr. Dahl, if you want…you know, if you want, if you like all this writing stuff, you could write about those stories I tell Charlie. I wouldn't mind," he said quickly, even somewhat hopefully. He paused for a moment, tray of fudge in hand, before stuttering, "T-That is, if you don't…well…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I brought it up, it is so presumptuous of me…you probably have a lot more important things to write about than stories concerning a chocolate factory and the man that lives there."

"No, not really. Nothing's more important than hope and imagination and that's what us writers are for. Provided, of course, that we have some good stories to tell," Dahl said, smiling, holding his chin in his left hand and looking up at the small, nervous man before him.

Willy set down the fudge in front of them and sat down. "In that case, Mr. Dahl," Willy started in a voice that, he noticed, was not meek or frightened, not even stuttering, but rather becoming of a storyteller. "I believe I might have some stories for you to write about."

"Tell them to me, Mr. Wonka. We've got all night," Dahl said, picking up a piece of fudge and biting into it. He grinned, settling back in his seat, holding his piece of fudge, preparing himself. "Tell me some of your chocolate stories…"