So there he is. A private old man being strangled by grief. A naive man, perhaps, having been closed off from the world by his creative gift: he'd stopped mixing with other people to any extent that might be enlightening or instructive for him around the time when men his age are usually just starting to learn life's hard lessons. He is a sitting target.
And here she comes. Not necessarily cold and calculating, but definitely determined, a survivor, whose victories have been earned with her looks and the charm she has a knack for projecting. She has to maintain the image of herself as doll-like because that is what has seen her through. She knows this on some level and it makes her angry, angry at the misrepresentation of her true soul. But she has to force the anger down because anger doesn't belong in the doll.
Does she know what is real and what is the doll? Is the real itself a doll? She subsumes her doubt in the belief in higher causes.
Here is the ultimate opportunity for survival. Here is the ultimate role for the doll: to save the old man being strangled by grief. So she hurls herself at him until he gives in and agrees to fall in love with her.
But she cannot rid him of his sadness. The fantasy of the doll that is so sustaining for her is seen to be failing. All the while she tries to heal him with her princess grace, he is dreaming of another woman lives ago, writing symphonies in her memory. Her rage becomes explosive because his sadness is a refutation of the lie that she is built upon.
The love can't last because by being true to grief and immune to the healing charms of the doll, he has rejected her existence.
And when it breaks up, no longer surrounded by her desperate need to be confirmed by saving him, he returns to who he was. Strangely, some of the grief has gone. She recreates the broken doll by telling everyone that he mistreated her, poor unworldly innocent she was, so acted-on.
The whole affair is talked about for twenty minutes, but it leaves a sour taste with those who believe, and disbelieve. Everybody lines up according to their prejudice, but no one has any stomach for it.
When the next love story comes along it is jumped on with extreme relief.
5 comments:
Hey Bruce. I've been away from my post too much.
Just wanted to check in and say Happy Sunday and read what you got going...
That post just sent a chill down my spine.
Keep it up!
Janey,
Your question about the doll is interesting, and evidence of a disturbingly nuanced mind! The doll is the part of the woman that is a reluctant creation, a confection. But it takes on its own will and its own goals and desires. The woman who provides the host body for the doll hates and needs her.
I wrote this after reading Jean-Paul Sartre. Does it show?
Rorie,
Thanks for the encouragement,it sounds silly to say it but I get off on knowing that people get something out of my writing--particularly when I know a little about the reader.
Bobby,
Hey man, how did the move go? I got called in to work unexpectedly on Sunday morning--other staff going down sick--but rather pathetically, I was getting a little bored at home after a week off. Bored and flat and uninspired. So although I would have preferred my inspiration to come from something other than work, I was kind of glad to have something to occupy my mind with. You know Sunday and I aren't the best of friends anyway.
Hope this tripartite response doesn't feel too much like one of those round robin letters...
All moved in, thanks. My back held up this one last time. Next time, though, I'll have to just sell everything where it sits.
Work on a Sunday? I hope you got triple double time for that.
No triple double time, B. Not even double time. Just the usual. I have to work one Sunday in every three anyway. That's one of the delights of residential care work for you. I also have to work on Christmas Day this year. But I will get double time for that. I bet this is all really interesting isn't it?
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