July 29, 2003

From: "Mitchell"
To: "Abbey"
Subject: something to get mad at
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 16:56:24 +0000

"the girl who has never seen love, though it has seen her (with inconsistent
variations in verb tense)"
-a literary piece of turd by mitchail von unamunovski.

setting: anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere (how deep, what a great thinker
von unamunovski is). probably an all night restaurant in winnipeg. warm
summer night, a little humid. could be today, could be tomorrow. a woman
(mid-thirties, looks younger though, except when she frowns) sits alone at a
table. the restaurant is still, save for an overweight waitress who is
cleaning off tables (spraying them with a chemical solvent, which would kill
a grown man even if consumed in minimal quantities). the woman lets out an
audible sigh as she stirs her beverage. the waitress hardly notices.
disappointed by the waitresses lack of sympathy, the woman buries herself in
thought...

(let it be known that this story is complicated and difficult to tell. i am
a mere mortal in the presense of idols. but i must try, for this story must
be told).

first she thinks about herself (this is only natural for her) and tries to
reason why she is so great. knowing that this is impossible, her mind
slowly drifts to another topic: love. as soon as the idea of love enters
her mind, she becomes uneasy. a synapse in her brain fires off, sending a
message down to her stomach. her stomach (used to this process by now),
reacts by releasing hydrochloric acid. within minutes, her stomach will be
upset. unbeknownst to her, years of stomach problems will soon catch up
with her, as she is in the process of developing an ulcer, which will go
unchecked for months. within a year, complications arising from her
untreated ulcer will manifest and she will die in a hospital bed, crying out
for someone who does not care. she will be buried on a cloudy day (as if
the gods openly mock her) and yet, the birds will sing gloriously. but this
is getting ahead of myself. allow me to return to the narrative:

the woman's discomfort becomes apparent and the waitress gives her a look to
see if she's ok, but the woman does not notice. she is preoccupied. she
ponders love, but does not realize that it ponders her back. she thinks of
a boy she recently was acquainted with. he is tall, a little awkward, but
rather handsome in a boyish manner. she smiles to herself briefly, though
the pangs coming from her stomach quickly wipe the smile away. the boy had
many notions that made the woman shake her head. he contemplated the
galaxy, was mesmorized by the simple, but too young to have anything
remotely interesting to say. too naive. too simple minded. "the missing
link between man and ape?" the woman mused to herself, again smiling. he
had immature ideas of love. so silly. in an attempt to disassociate
himself from emotion, the boy claimed that emotion was simply the work of
chemicals in the brain. nothing more. the woman shot his theory down
though, by pulling out some feminist bullshit that she felt did not comply
with his theory. the boy still maintained his position, suggesting that the
woman had missed his point. she always did, (as she did when he spoke of
jealousy) though she would never admit it, for to do so would jeopardize her
perfection (not realizing that her perfection was already jeopardized by the
shadow of a doubt that she may possibly be incorrect). the women then
thought of the boy some more: his family (fools, like him), his interests
(foolish), his articulation (foolish and painful). he would never be like
her. she could never appreciate his insights. she was better than him.
that went without saying. her thoughts return to love. what is love? she
quickly answers her own question: love does not exist. it is a dream, a
fantasy. she knows all and does not know love, ergo love must be an
abstract, a construct, non-existent. she smiles once more, for she is the
master of her own world, nothing can touch her.

laying on the woman's table is a fork. silver, but dull, not being polished
since it left a factory in des moines some six years earlier. the fork has
been used 1632 times, by 1516 different people. it lies there on her table,
untouched. she does not use it, she only came for a drink. she noticed it
immediately when she sat down but quickly dismissed it. she did not like
the floral decorations that adorned it. "too mid-90s," she had thought.
the woman had been sitting infront of the fork for close to forty-five
minutes. in that time, the fork had come to understand her. she was not as
clever or brilliant as she, or anyone else, thought (granted, forks are much
smarter than any human). no, she wasn't what she seemed at all. instead,
she was tragic and the fork pitied her. it could not help but imagine her
as nothing more than a little girl. the fork wanted to tell her that just
because she hasn't seen love, does not mean that love hasn't seen her. love
has always been all around her, but she never let it come near her, instead
she always chased love away. although the boy's notions of love were
foolish, he never doubted its existence, for this, the boy was in fact
smarter than the woman. the fork wanted to tell her this. it wanted to
tell her more, but it forced itself to stop thinking about the woman. her
tragedy is the fork's tragedy because the fork can see the truth, but cannot
share it. the fork cannot tell anyone of the truth it sees. it woed,
knowing that the woman was its inverse: she could speak but could not see
the truth.

the woman's thoughts return to the boy. then she frowns. she wishes she
could talk with him, kiss his lips. like the others, he is gone now.
where? she does not know for certain. chased away.

having released herself of shame and paid her bill, the woman drives to the
university to check her emails. the inbox is empty.

FADE TO BLACK

~if you desire peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you would be a
disciple of truth, then inquire.~