While going through one of my hard disks, chanced upon a whole body of work Id created in 2007-08 when I used to love writing fiction. Heres one of those, written with the constraint of being under 555 words. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I never finished the story! I got married instead! The smile animating her eyes stares into mine as she slides the ring up my finger. A lone tendril snakes wantonly up to the edge of her lips and she strokes it away reminding me of our first date. “What do you do for a living?” she asked that night, perhaps assessing me. I told her I was a writer, “Writing can be tough. I had this friend who wrote the name tags at a workshop for people with multiple personality disorder. It messed his head!” Her laugh sounded rapt and soaking-in-the-moment like homeless children dancing in the rain. “What are you writing?” She pushed the obstinate tendril off her cheek. “It’s complicated!” Love, though, was ironically uncomplicated. And now she leans over, oblivious to the judgmental look from the priest, and whispers, “I dig you!” and smiles with her eyes. She coaxed it all out on the fifth meeting. The words slipped out of my brain, bounced twice on my tongue feeling the fleshy rebound, and gravitated out under an influence. “We-ell, I’m writing the diary of a woman who is dating a man who is actually dating her to study women so that he can write a diary from a woman’s perspective denigrating women!” I blurted. “Uhh…” “Not worth a thought!” I hurried, hoping she hadn’t figured it already! “Meta enough to be fun!” she smiled. “Do you, Christopher Varghese, take this woman as wife?” The priest rephrases a question that I’d first heard in my head a month back. Was I really falling in love? Symptomatically-abundant love? Did Pavlov drool over his dog? Are guinea pigs worth a cuddle? “Do you love me?” she asked. Were the answers to all the questions the same? “Uhh…”“Not worth a thought!” she hurried, perhaps hoping I hadn’t figured it already. But I had! “Think Anne Frank or Bridget Jones! And this guy’s dating her to write a woman’s diary!” “And the book’s the diary of that woman while she’s dating him?” “Like a diary within a diary!” “And does she know that?” “Eventually!” “So he’s just taking her for a ride! Isn’t he a pig?” “Uhh… yes… yes, he is!” “Can’t they just date the way we do?” she pouted, “Can’t you make characters like yourself?” But I already had! Being a man, writing a woman’s diary is tough! Six months of research and twenty-one Barista bills, and then… “I really dig you!” I said on our twenty-first date. She smiled. “Will you marry me?” And the smile rippled across her face like a lazy drop hitting the water surface. “That man in your book…” she asked me that night, “Still a pig?” “He got better!” I said distractedly, “He might be falling in love!” “And you… do YOU love me?” she asked, fishing for answers never supplied. And I turn to look at the priest and smile, “I do!” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- I might just get back to writing some fiction again, it feels so refreshing and liberating. Its a bit like travel. It helps you live realities that wouldnt otherwise exist.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 03:53:43 +0000
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