Tuesday, February 11, 2003

Ten Minute Story

OK...I'm not instituting my new plan to write a 10 minute story (well, they don't always have to be 10 minutes but I only have 10 minutes at the moment).

?

Trina always looked for excitement. She remembered when she was a child how every day was a long saggy stretch into nothing unless something bad happened or there was something to break up the monotony.

Valentine's Day sometimes worked but only when another kid would cry because he didn't get a valentine. (Trina had a soft heart and anyway her mother made her give valentines to every kid in the class--although she did differentiate with respect to candy hearts.)

It wasn't that she wanted kids to cry--it was just that it made things less dull and similar. She remembered the time Janet cut her leg on the fence and blood oozed out. Janet was sweet and pretty and everyone loved her so it created a great stir that she was injured. Only Trina knew the first aid for wounds and where the pressure points were--even the gym teacher didn't know. So she got to apply the pressure point on Janet's leg. And then when she released the leg when the paramedics came the blood sprung forth again.

The image was always before her mind of injury, devastation, emotionality, excitement, change. The unexpected--how she craved it, sought it, tried her best to make it come about.

Another glorious day occurred when Nicky bashed another kid over the head with a chair. He was upset perhaps because his sister had died recently. Where was Nicky now? Probably in some prison somewhere.

When it came time to date, to find love and marriage Trina realized that you had to want permanence in order to make loss meaningful but that permanence itself would be the same old drag. Knowing what might happen day in and day out seemed like a form of torture. (She jumped from job to job always looking for the possibility of a job that would somehow be different every day. She sought irregularity and chaos in all her loves but she never brought it about that chaos would occur. She didn't take risks of that sort. Cheating on her boyfriend seemed boring since in that case she would be in control--she would be the cause of the surprise. This is not what she wanted. She wanted it to come out of the blue--love like a shockwave in the most unlikely places; a lover ripped from her arms (somehow) at the moment of greatest devotion.

She hated suspense. She didn't like fear and anticipation and being caught ordinarily--they were just time killers--second best when the spectre of boredom raised its terrifying head.

She wanted destiny but destiny tinged with doom or dissolution.

When he came into her life it was as if a dream had been answered. She never knew what he would say or do.

And it didn't matter that she was bored.

THE END

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