The letter is written in oil on a piece of blue-checked gingham fabric.
Monks of the Flying Temple, you just got to save us from the authors! If you don't we'll all go mad, or something worse. The five of us have been so many different things at so many different times that we can't really remember who we were to begin with. At least our basic identities stay the same -- we're always The Girl, The Dog, The Straw Man, The Metal Man and the Lion. But the details keep changing something awful. Some days I'm a little girl, the next a grown woman, and sometimes I just want get home to my family, and sometimes I want . . . other things, things to do with my fellow cast members that seem wrong when I'm little. It's very disturbing!
But you know what's even more disturbing? We can hear all the authors muttering to themselves as they hang out there in the air between worlds, looking down on us and changing us. But we don't want to be changed! It's not right, not at all. We just want to be the people we originally were, whatever that was. So could you kindly send us some pilgrims and have them tell the authors to please leave us alone?
Thanks a bunch! I'll stick this letter inside the metal man the next time he's hollow -- that should get it to you.
Wow, that's really, really creepy. I'm almost reminded of that episode of the Twilight Zone where the soldier, ballerina, hobo and clown are trapped in a featureless cylindrical room but have no idea how they got there or how to get out.
Of course, the immediate question is whether one of the authors compelled the girl to write this letter or if she did it of her own volition.