It's about these two people who were friends and much more than friends and could be married, now, except they aren't. Their presents are haunted by what they once were and what they could have been and what they could have become. What they are not: together. They would never admit to themselves, and certainly not to each other, but it's also what they would like to be (and what they should be — although these things become unclear when you take everything into consideration).
Life. So many things get in the way. They are resolved to believe it's better this way.
They've both moved on and become brilliant and successful. Yet every once in a while, somewhere in the world, they meet. A quiet café with a scenic view. An elegant restaurant with laughably snobbish waiters. An underground gallery, blank walls. They share empty words, special moments, veiled understandings, little else. Some hope, maybe.
3 comments:
I hate this. Not because it wasn't well written, but because I hate...GAHHHHHHHHHH. nicely done. you made me feel emotion (I AM A ROBOT!)
hmmm. Not sure exactly what to say about this one, the first time i read it I was confused because i read "their parents" rather than "their presents" so it made more sense the second time.
Reads like a synopsis to a screenplay. I felt that the ending was open and unresolved.
Are you planning on fleshing out a story around this?
This is really well done - like Mike said, definitely emotion evoked there :P I think it strikes right at the very human heartstring of WHAT IF? The grand question of maybe this isn't how things are supposed to have been, maybe I should be living some other reality where somehow I just made a wrong turn, didn't tell someone how I felt soon enough, never admitted I felt that way to begin with. It really emphasizes that feeling and traps it into a seemingly casual, dismissively indifferent three paragraph piece, but you can really feel all sorts of pain underneath. I felt as though the tone did a very good job at simultaneously covering up the anguish of never knowing, while at the same time acknowledging that dwelling on that state of mind is foolish and unrealistic, but not being able to help feeling that way anyway.
One thing that bothered me was the second paragraph, particularly the single-worded-sentence of "Life." I found it a bit cliche and somewhat like that negligible and awkward sigh between conversation topics where you just say something for the sake of saying it, and somewhere underneath it all you know that it's meaningful, but it's not used in proper context to make it so. I would drop that, and maybe even the second sentence, and just keep it at "They are resolved to believe it's better this way". I think that will make it stronger.
Anyway, way to go with flash fiction! It's kind of neat that you're trying some shorter stuff lately.
Post a Comment