The number plate said it all

The man simply stood there smiling as he held the two identical baseballs. He had one ball in each hand. The man very slowly began to laugh as the three boys stared at him in shock. So far nothing about the situation seemed to make sense. First off, the house behind them, which seemed to belong to this man, had extremely unusual architecture. The first floor was half the size of the second floor. And the second floor was half the size of the 3ird floor. The house didn’t seem to use any struts and therefore, just thinking about the house would give you a headache. The man for some reason was wearing 18th century clothing, and his laugh seemed twisted, inhuman.
         “What have you done with our friend!” yelled Jacob, A scruffy looking boy.
         “I have forced him into the shape of this ball; this is the punishment you children get when you believe that you can throw your balls onto my lawn without thought” fumed the man who was obviously angry.
         “Do you actually expect us to believe that!” demanded Liam, who was something of a death metal freak, he’s T-shirt had the name of a death metal band splayed across it. The man smiled and replied in turn “I can prove it”.
         “Oh really, how?” asked Dale, who was something of an idiot; he was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
         “Like this” calmly said the man. And with that he dropped the ball in his left hand and used his left and to pull out a knife from his belt. He then proceeded to cut the ball with his knife. As he did so a trickle of blood came out of the ball and slid down the side of it. A manic, twisted, expression crossed his face as he laughed out loud.
         “Please, stop this immediately” cried Jacob.
         “Yeah, this is horrible” agreed Dale.
         “Hah! You mortals don’t even know the meaning of cruelty” laughed the man as he put down the knife, much to the boys relief.
         “You children are so ignorant, you don’t even know that your just characters in a story” chuckled the man
         “Huh? What are you talking about?”  Asked Dale
         “Dude what the hell are you on about, just stop this madness and give us back our friend” interrupted Liam.
         “No! You have thoroughly angered me with your miserable ignorance, you aren’t even real people, this is just childish story!”
         “What the hell are you on about” yelled Liam
         “Have you ever considered the fact that your entire lives, your entire existence, are just a bunch of words on paper”? The boys had to admit it, they never considered it. At that moment Jacob decided to step forward and ask a few questions. “Who are you exactly?” he asked. The man stopped laughing and turned to look at him. There was a surprised expression on his face. “What do you mean” the man asked.
         “I mean that you’re not normal, you turned our friend into a ball, your house seems impossible, you’re wearing 18th century clothing and at one point you have called yourself immortal” explained Jacob.
         “Yeah so?” quizzed the man.
         “So who, or what, exactly are you?” pressed Jacob. The man stared intently at Jacob before answering his question. “have you ever wondered what would happen if you were to go back in time and kill your parents before you were ever conceived?” asked the man bluntly. The boys had to admit, they had never thought about it. The man didn’t bother to wait for them as he continued anyway. “I did, I discovered a form of time travel, you would have figured that the universe would have perhaps created an alternate universe, or perhaps make the act impossible to do.” He paused and laughed for a while. “That was a fairly foolish thing of me to think, I mean. The universe can’t think. It’s just a place. Turned out that I created an anomaly of myself.” Dale listened but was confused. “I don’t get it, you killed your parents but then how were you born?” he asked.
         “That’s exactly the problem I created for myself when I killed my parents. Now, I technically was never born” he explained. Liam nodded and replied in turn “So reality doesn’t work around you does it?”
         “No, it doesn’t, does that answer your question?” he asked. The boys nodded. Then Jacob proceeded to ask a very important question. “Can we have our friend now?” The man burst into maniacal laughter. “You children have shown me that your not completely hopeless, so how about this. Look at my car over there, study it carefully then I need you to answer 3 questions about it”. The boys looked over their shoulders to see an extremely stylish car, a burgatti veron, Liam knew a lot about the car, and he was also a car junkie.  The car was one of the fastest in the world and could do over 400 km/h. The car had many rounded edges and nearly no rough edges. Just as they had gotten used to the sight of the car it disappeared all so suddenly as if it were never there. It felt like the car was just a figment of their imagination as it disappeared so suddenly.
         “So, are you boys ready for my 3 questions?” asked the man. The boys nodded, although they really weren’t ready at all. “Excellent, first question; what is the name of that car?” Liam chimed in before he could finish the question. “A Burgatti Veron!” he cried with enthusiasm.
         “Very good, next question; what was the maximum mileage of that car?” Jacob calmly answered the question “It’s 257 mph, I saw it on the dashboard”
         “Excellent, and my final question, what does my personalized number plate say?” The boys each looked at each other in worry, nobody bothered to check for the number plate. The boys started to panic, if they couldn’t answer this question then who knows what would happen to their friend? After much thought Jacob chimed in with an answer. “I’m willing to bet that the answer is BTRTHNU”. The man smiled a grim smile; this could either be very bad or very good. In one quick flash the man disappeared along with his house and his car. In his place was a boy of about 16 standing there dumbfounded with a baseball in his hand. He had blood trickling down his face. “How did you know what his number plate was” asked Dale.
         “Well because, quite frankly, his personalized number plate said it all”