Mostly, I just want to leave it as it is because it's 1,111 words. Immensely short, but then again, if I start to make it too long I forget how to stop. The topic is to 'write a story about a dilemma', and for the most part, I went far off course.
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Flutter
It is a popular conceit amongst those who believe in the chaos of butterflies that one day affects the next in a lattice so complex that it cannot be unwoven. At least, Erin believed so. Young and spry and still very much in love with the world, she tried every day to infuse just a little bit of randomness in the hopes of creating a hurricane, or at the least, creating a lover. Or better yet, someone who could be loved. This was her way of getting back at the world -- that by wearing strange clothes, by changing her accent to and from her not-yet-forgotten southern drawl, that the very universe itself would bend to her beck and call.
And it almost worked. Once, in November, she had caught a man watching her dance to her Zune in the back of her local library. She jumped, surprised, and he had disappeared into the rows and rows of books, lost inside the labyrinth forever. She hadn't wanted to scare him away, but her instincts had gotten the better of her. So she went back to dancing, and this time girded herself for surprise. Instead, a young worker -- he couldn't have been older than 15 -- told her to stop raising a scene and could you please stop distracting the patrons and I bet you'd like a Danielle Steele novel, wouldn't you? Erin sighed, shoulders slumped, and admitted that she did indeed, because she was young and very much unaware of Danielle Steele's reputation in more learned circles.
But it is unfair to say that Erin was not smart, or at the least not clever, because in those halcyon days she had discovered all sorts of tricks for getting boys to pay attention to her. The trashy intellect brought on by cheesy romance novels was one; the beach was another. The two combined created a force to be reckoned with, and that was exactly how she liked to be considered. A second time, the following April, she had decided that beach reading was too plain and obvious, and had come to the beach in her karate gi. All too quickly she discovered that by focusing on her kata, she approached a state of mind where the affairs of men and the world were not all that important, after all. For two hours she practiced completely uninterrupted, and when the sun dipped below the water Erin reluctantly returned to her apartment, alone again, but somehow feeling better.
That sensation of peace persisted; when she found herself asking people what their favorite dessert was and if you didn't like dessert what was wrong with you honestly, everyone loves pie, a particularly cute boy asked her out. She declined, and then stopped, and accepted with sincere and worried apologies. Still apologizing, she stepped out of the train and bobbed her head and waved, and when the doors shut she realized that in her utter embarassment, she'd forgotten to give him her number. But still, no matter what she did, that feeling of peace persisted, blossoming ever-so-softly into a warmth that gave her the courage to just forget about him, he was cute but probably had the brains of a chimp anyways.
It was also that feeling that made her confused. So confused, in fact, that she had given him her number. This confusion compounded itself when he called, introduced himself properly. His name was Eric, very much like her own and yet so much stronger -- and he told her that they would be meeting at Coldstone in an hour. His favorite dessert was actually cheesecake, but she had admitted that she preferred vanilla ice cream with brownie chunks in it.
When she met with him, Erin made an important choice -- or so she felt it was -- and ordered raspberry ice cream with no chunks or sprinkles or ripples or anything of the sort. Eric chose some ridiculous chocolate concoction; as far as she could tell, he had ordered every single chocolate item on the menu mashed into a gargantuan monstrosity. She giggled, and he laughed, and she could feel that connection she had longed for every night since high school. This would work.
Quietly, she uttered an epithet to the cruel nature of the universe, and how she was going to kick it's ass.
They talked; he about his job (he was a contractor, and very serious about his work), she about her plans. Oh, and what grandiose plans they were in those days -- full of megacorporations and licensing and franchising, but not so much about the money involved, either earned or spent. It was about the power, about the defiance. Sure, other women had become powerful business lordesses (Erin had not taken any history classes in college, and would have been disgusted to find out that the proper term was 'lady') well before her, but she was going to be the first to do it right. To keep her sexy cute coolness and still rock the casbah. She was going places, boy, just you wait. Eric's eyes danced like fireflies to her enthusiasm, and it became contagious; soon they were plotting together.
Soon they were to be together, because even though it was the beginning of May, night still conspired to eventually occur, although it seems at times like those that twilight lasts forever. And with night meant the return home to an empty apartment, and the peace inside Erin had been stirred by their talk, and it had become something much more intense.
When they returned to her place, they kissed, and then froze. For some reason, Erin found herself admitting that she believed in the chaos of butterflies. When Eric cocked his head in a rather dashing way, she explained -- the world was cruel and evil, and only by proactivity could it be changed. But that momentum could be directed anywhere, and the results are never, ever ever what one expects. A kiss could turn into sex; it could turn into obsession. Raspberry ice cream could turn into the desire to change oneself, or it could just give you a stomach-ache so you lose the romance that had built up. The choice to take a martial art could lead to a growing violent streak, or it could temper one's spirit with patience and wisdom. A private dance could turn into desire, or it could simply result in scolding. The choice to believe in choice could lead one down excess, extremes, and petty egotism, or it could simply make for good conversation several years later.
Eric kissed her once again. What choice will you make now?
3 comments:
The voice of this piece was distinctly similar to your Sin story in that it felt like a film or theater voice-over. Having said that you didn't edit this story, I am curious about whether this writing style is your natural one.
What say you?
I have three writing styles.
One where I avoid dialogue.
One where I overuse dialogue.
One that's not the other two. :P
The reason, I think, that I fall into that kind of voice so often is that it's easy to use it without having to properly describe the scene or situation, and if you actually look closely, it's got almost no sense of chronology. It's better for evoking thoughts and emotions, maybe, but there's a very poor sense of 'where' and 'when.' Those are two things I really need to work on, and until I do, the current style is something of a crutch.
Which isn't to say I don't like it :D
Commenting on the narrative voice as well: it's very confident, which is good. A lot of non-professional writers (guys like us) don't have that confidence in their writing and stick to a very passive style. A lot of the setences and structure of your story were well crafted and insightful too, which makes the confidence very well grounded.
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