Existential Ethics

There's a forty year old man by the bar, holding on to a half-finished whiskey with a twist. He is dressed too casually for a bar that fancy, but his eyebrows seem to adorn a purposefulness that is lacking in his manner.
"You're Franz Applebaum aren't you? I am obsessed with your books!", she says.
"If you're obsessed with them, you probably haven't read them. Here, have a seat.", he offers.
She laughs and struggles on to the empty stool beside him.
"That's not my real name, by the way", he adds and repeats after a "Hmm?"
"So Franz as in Kafka?"
"Brenteno, actually. But what's in a name?"
She nods, not knowing what to say. "What's yours?", he asks more out of politeness than curiosity.
"I'm Idyriss, you could call me Id."
"Oh you've got to be kidding me! This doesn't even happen in cheesy fiction."
"Are you always like this?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's just.. the characters in your books seem so... And you seem to be a little.."
"Ah, but aren't we all exactly what we choose to be, with a potential to be anything we want?"
"So you choose to be cynical?"
"Maybe, if only for the lack of a better word."
"Why? Did something bad happen to you?"
"You can always make something out of what you've been made into, no?"
"So you're saying I am what's in my head?"
"Oh but darling, the whole universe is in your head."

Cheesy, self-aware and pretentious in one go.