''Of all the people she could have invited , it struck me as odd that she chose me. The 'other' woman was never first on the guest list, after all. I guess I should have seen that there would be more to it than the asparagus soup and fig tart.
If I'd have known, I would have torn the invitation in two as soon as I received it. That's the thing about the past. There's very little we can do to change it. Let me correct myself, there's bugger all we can do to change it...''
That's the beginning of a story and I'd like people who are reading this blog, to think of a suitable plot. I'm in need of promising ideas. What do people think went on at the party?
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About me
- Tainted Visionary
- London, United Kingdom
- The Opening occurs like a dream, solid sand amongst parted waves, Each murmuring a hymn. Slowly. There I stand, and there you are, Staring into the abyss.
2 comments:
I was intrigued when you rang me last night to read me the offerings from a burst of wisdom you'd had not 30 minutes before. I, as it happened, was leaning against my car looking at the night sky which was covered with stars, delaying the inevitable task of having to leave the little gems by going inside. Stars offer food for thought and I tried during my time with them to make light of what actually did take place at that party for the other woman to feel so regretful. These thoughts provided a welcome diversion from other thoughts coarsing through my head.
At 3.10am exactly last night I woke and thought to myself perhaps we are getting too wound up in what happened at the party, when perhaps that isn't the issue at all. The piece you wrote is simply the opening paragraph of a novel and it is for the novel itself to unravel and discover the answer as to what took place at the party, not us. Words are beautiful things and have many purposes, one of which being the creation of mystery. So my theory is, give us not the answer, tell the story. Indeed, as Joan Didion once said; we tell ourselves stories in order to live... So let us live.
Upon hearing my views, and wanting to read my writing (god forbid) you requested I write what I considered to be the passage that follows the opening. At your request I shall indulge myself this week in doing just that. Man Booker Prize 2008 here we come... *pah*
-The Dame-
Ps Desdemona, Ophelia ... where did you go, the blog misses your radiance?
I didnt even think about it. Just sat at my laptop and wrote for hours, this is what appeared...Booker Prize certainly not..
It was her beauty you see. I do not recall seeing beauty like it to this day. Four years on as I sit here behind my laptop in this cramped coffee shop I can still see her face behind the counter, I can still feel her next to me. Four years on and I’m here to tell a story, so that is what I will do.
How do you define beauty though? She wasn’t your average beauty you must understand, she wouldn’t grace the catwalks of Milan or the stages of Broadway. I remember the day clearly. 14th October 1989. I remember the way the wind carried the leaves down the street, grazing cobbles and landing in the frozen gutters. The condensation from the mouths of people rushing to and fro made the street look almost poetic in its innocence. I even remember the newspaper seller barking that papers were available and throwing small change into his tin, the money coming in to land with a high pitched clang. There was a distinct sense that the world was revolving and life was real. Amazing how we remember these intricacies which to others are seemingly insignificant, and which in the grand scheme of things are almost unimportant. But. I could recount the details of that day over and over, because it was the day I discovered her.
I had rushed into the coffee shop on my way to work to collect my morning paper and a few minutes to myself when I saw her. Serving behind the counter she resembled a woman you might find in a Jack Kerouac novel. She wore scruffy brown leather boots, faded denims and a t-shirt with a motif on front shouting ‘save the cows, fry the hunters’. Her hair as I remember was long, brown, tied back with a few strands escaping the prison of her hair tie and hung down her face. Her face was complimented by a pair of black glasses which hung off the end of her nose and her generally scruffy attire was completed with an apron that hung untidily from her waist. She even had a few pens clipped to the outer edge of it.
Beauty. Not to everyone else, just to me. Do you know what really caught my eye though? Her hair, her feet, her arse, her eyes - no, her ears. When I saw her from my position in the doorway I wanted her. Upon my approach to the counter I wanted her. At the counter I wanted her, and her ears. I could imagine lying next to her breathing into her ear, I wanted to run my tongue around the outer edge of her ear before kissing her. I wanted to hear her call my name…
“Can I help you sir?”. I shivered at the cool breeze floating through the door. An invisible conveyer belt had carried me to the counter and I noticed she had long slender fingers and eyes of such a deep blue I thought I might be drowning at sea.
“Sir?”
“Yes, um coffee”
She smiled that smile, oh, that smile. And that, for me, was the moment. I wanted her. I consciously turned my wedding ring around the finger it belonged to. But that’s another story.
-The Dame-
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