Post by Beelzebibble on Sept 21, 2008 11:08:24 GMT -5
Wrote this fiction for my English seminar, "Deceptions: Some Truths About Lies." You guys might be interested. The assignment was simply to concoct a story about an unreliable narrator. It's really short, I know, but it had to be -- we were held to a strict three-page maximum.
All right, but really you must understand – no, honestly, you have to see that I didn’t hit him first. Can we establish that before I begin? Will you believe me? Will you – ? Someone has to give me the satisfaction at some point. I don’t think I’ve been properly believed in a week. There’s a real pleasure to it, a real fulfillment. Let me tell you what happened, and in return, please do me the favor of believing me. I’ve long since stopped asking for anything else.
Yes! I’ve long since stopped asking for her, too. People never took my word on that. I may never figure it out. No, she’s well behind me. I am so often misjudged as sentimental. I don’t like the word. To me it means clingy. I assure you, when she said she wanted to give things a break, I bore it patiently and well – and I certainly didn’t cling to her like a child.
Was I – Of course I was dejected. What do you mean, “dejected”? Are you mocking me? That’s a piddling little word, about the most piddling little word in the language. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a term that fell so far short of suggesting what it was supposed to mean. Why are all English words of a Latin pedigree so coldly deferential! “Sentimental”, “dejected” – to hell with them. I was broken. There. That’s better. I wanted to cry. I sat in the bathroom and tried to cry. I couldn’t bring anything out. I haven’t cried in years and years. I seem to have developed a horrible toughness about it. There, that’s even better.
Yes but I did not cling. I didn’t. I finished and that was all. I kept my distance, a good respectful distance. I didn’t throw myself at her feet. As a matter of fact I didn’t even see anyone else in the weeks that followed. I had, by all means, two or three other girls I could have called to my arms in an instant, but I’m above vengeance. I think they must have understood and respected my integrity, dear hearts, because none of them made any approaches upon me either.
For a while, I never saw her with anyone but her usual Amazon tribe of girlfriends, but not a month had passed before I spotted her sitting a few tables over while I was enjoying a quiet evening at one of our old favorite restaurants. He was with her.
An acquaintance. No, a friend. Well, he had been a friend – but after that night, I no longer greeted him on the street. Actually I never ran into him until… I mean, I saw him, yes, that’s true, but we didn’t meet. I couldn’t face him. I began seeing him, though, really everywhere. Once I was forced into seeking refuge behind a statue in a park; he had taken me by surprise. I didn’t emerge until I had watched him full round the bend. I kept a closer eye out for him after that.
More and more often I saw them both together – everywhere I turned! I sat behind them at the cinema once. It was the most perfect awful pain. The movie, it was a silly college comedy, I don’t remember much of it. Not expecting to enjoy it, I hadn’t done any of my friends the disservice of asking them along. I try to be considerate. I followed them out of the theater.
She had to relieve herself. He dawdled outside the ladies’ room. I saw his eyes follow another pretty young thing who had been in the theater with us. Lecherous cheater! I approached him. I smiled, as was only proper. He started a bit at my greeting. Obviously caught in the act.
“How are you?” he asked, but I wasn’t important, nor am I ever; I asked him how she was.
He blinked. The oaf. After the most expertly contrived split second’s pause, he said, “She’s fine.” I asked how her novel was coming. Now he stared. “What novel?”
“Oh she hasn’t told you? Eons. About a man who believes he is undergoing within himself the entire history of the universe. Yes, he begins by blowing up his house, then runs barefoot in increasingly large circles around the city until—” He very rudely cut me off. He said she’d never told him she was a writer. I dared venture, gently, that there could be so much to her that he didn’t know, really absolutely astonishing things.
He took a step toward me then – now, didn’t I tell you he was the aggressor? – and asked if there was anything else I felt like sharing while I was there. “Of course,” I said, “I don’t want to make any presumptions about what you mean to her,” very wisely, I think. Yet he was beyond civility. He said she was none of my business. I agreed and turned to go. “But since you asked was there anything else,” I added, and began to offer some helpful sexual advice as she emerged from the bathroom. That was when he hit me.
All right, there it is. Obviously I hit him back. Frankly I think it’s admirable that I was able to so much as scratch a fellow twice my size. That I managed to knock out two of his teeth, I think, merits a Medal of Honor. But I’m not asking for one and I’m not asking for her. All I ask is that you believe me. Nothing else.
Well, all right, perhaps there is something else. I’d like a fresh ream of paper. I’m just about to get started on the second draft of Eons. I have it in mind to work him in as an incidental character. Perhaps an overbearing neighbor consumed in the blaze of the Big Bang. Poetic justice is so much more reliable than the institutionalized kind.
All right, but really you must understand – no, honestly, you have to see that I didn’t hit him first. Can we establish that before I begin? Will you believe me? Will you – ? Someone has to give me the satisfaction at some point. I don’t think I’ve been properly believed in a week. There’s a real pleasure to it, a real fulfillment. Let me tell you what happened, and in return, please do me the favor of believing me. I’ve long since stopped asking for anything else.
Yes! I’ve long since stopped asking for her, too. People never took my word on that. I may never figure it out. No, she’s well behind me. I am so often misjudged as sentimental. I don’t like the word. To me it means clingy. I assure you, when she said she wanted to give things a break, I bore it patiently and well – and I certainly didn’t cling to her like a child.
Was I – Of course I was dejected. What do you mean, “dejected”? Are you mocking me? That’s a piddling little word, about the most piddling little word in the language. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a term that fell so far short of suggesting what it was supposed to mean. Why are all English words of a Latin pedigree so coldly deferential! “Sentimental”, “dejected” – to hell with them. I was broken. There. That’s better. I wanted to cry. I sat in the bathroom and tried to cry. I couldn’t bring anything out. I haven’t cried in years and years. I seem to have developed a horrible toughness about it. There, that’s even better.
Yes but I did not cling. I didn’t. I finished and that was all. I kept my distance, a good respectful distance. I didn’t throw myself at her feet. As a matter of fact I didn’t even see anyone else in the weeks that followed. I had, by all means, two or three other girls I could have called to my arms in an instant, but I’m above vengeance. I think they must have understood and respected my integrity, dear hearts, because none of them made any approaches upon me either.
For a while, I never saw her with anyone but her usual Amazon tribe of girlfriends, but not a month had passed before I spotted her sitting a few tables over while I was enjoying a quiet evening at one of our old favorite restaurants. He was with her.
An acquaintance. No, a friend. Well, he had been a friend – but after that night, I no longer greeted him on the street. Actually I never ran into him until… I mean, I saw him, yes, that’s true, but we didn’t meet. I couldn’t face him. I began seeing him, though, really everywhere. Once I was forced into seeking refuge behind a statue in a park; he had taken me by surprise. I didn’t emerge until I had watched him full round the bend. I kept a closer eye out for him after that.
More and more often I saw them both together – everywhere I turned! I sat behind them at the cinema once. It was the most perfect awful pain. The movie, it was a silly college comedy, I don’t remember much of it. Not expecting to enjoy it, I hadn’t done any of my friends the disservice of asking them along. I try to be considerate. I followed them out of the theater.
She had to relieve herself. He dawdled outside the ladies’ room. I saw his eyes follow another pretty young thing who had been in the theater with us. Lecherous cheater! I approached him. I smiled, as was only proper. He started a bit at my greeting. Obviously caught in the act.
“How are you?” he asked, but I wasn’t important, nor am I ever; I asked him how she was.
He blinked. The oaf. After the most expertly contrived split second’s pause, he said, “She’s fine.” I asked how her novel was coming. Now he stared. “What novel?”
“Oh she hasn’t told you? Eons. About a man who believes he is undergoing within himself the entire history of the universe. Yes, he begins by blowing up his house, then runs barefoot in increasingly large circles around the city until—” He very rudely cut me off. He said she’d never told him she was a writer. I dared venture, gently, that there could be so much to her that he didn’t know, really absolutely astonishing things.
He took a step toward me then – now, didn’t I tell you he was the aggressor? – and asked if there was anything else I felt like sharing while I was there. “Of course,” I said, “I don’t want to make any presumptions about what you mean to her,” very wisely, I think. Yet he was beyond civility. He said she was none of my business. I agreed and turned to go. “But since you asked was there anything else,” I added, and began to offer some helpful sexual advice as she emerged from the bathroom. That was when he hit me.
All right, there it is. Obviously I hit him back. Frankly I think it’s admirable that I was able to so much as scratch a fellow twice my size. That I managed to knock out two of his teeth, I think, merits a Medal of Honor. But I’m not asking for one and I’m not asking for her. All I ask is that you believe me. Nothing else.
Well, all right, perhaps there is something else. I’d like a fresh ream of paper. I’m just about to get started on the second draft of Eons. I have it in mind to work him in as an incidental character. Perhaps an overbearing neighbor consumed in the blaze of the Big Bang. Poetic justice is so much more reliable than the institutionalized kind.