"Of course he can't project me. That would be a distortion of myself. It wouldn't," she yawned, ruffling her red locks, "be me."
I rubbed my head again. I couldn't think of anything to say.
Willy shifted. "I can draw her smaller," he said. "But that would make it even worse, of course."
I nodded. "Of course." Because it seemed practical to say it, I said it: "But wouldn't that be a distortion too?"
"Of course not," Red said, and I had the fleeting impression of being faced by a school teacher in the minute end of a telescope. "Minimized elements are true elements, merely condensed. Maximized elements are bloated, therefore distorted." She sniffed. "Any figment knows that."
I tossed it around in my floundering mind, but it still came out the way it sounded. There was another silence. I could see that the two of them were losing faith in my godmaternal fairyhood. So just to keep the conversation jogging, I tried another tack. To Willy I said:
"If Red's a figment of your imagination, why didn't you imagine her a more practical size in the first place?"
Willy chewed on it for a couple minutes. Red turned away in disgust to leap from my kneecap to Willy's. She seated herself primly and began fussing with her infinitesimal nails. Willy said, "After all, she does have a mind of her own, Jim. She wanted to be imagined the size she is, so—" He looked at me and shrugged.
"Why," demanded the little woman, "should I go up to him? Why can't he come down to me?"