Page 52 - Vol. VI #1

I want to write a story. Maybe...
Yes...
Yes.
Wabi-Sabi
I want to write a story.
Love—that unknown, unknowable quantity—be- comes a commonplace thing. Maybe not a com- monplace word, and maybe it doesn’t mean the same for one as for the other, but it’s there—for a good, long time, it’s there.
I want to write a story about a guy and a girl who meet under, let’s say, difficult circumstances. Maybe it’s a menial job, or a less than ideal living situation—a low point for both.
And time passes in such a way, as time so often does.
So, they meet under these frustrating, flummox- ing, foothold-less circumstances, and just to add to the difficulty, maybe they don’t think so much of one another at first. Maybe they actually kind of dislike one another at first–one could even say they disdain one another at first. Maybe she sees his demeanor as aloof. Condescending. Cocksure. Maybe he watches her floating at the center of their social circle, content and confident, and thinks, who the hell does she think she is.
But of course, flawed beings that they are, complica- tions arise and problems ensue. She’s not ready for all that he wants. He feels insecure and unappreci- ated—left to twist as she floats onward and up.
But maybe...
And so, after a time, after many fights, many makeups, many proclamations of what is and what should be, things fall apart, as things so of- ten do. Time is a curved line, a circle after all, and yet there is no going backward, the same place returned to again and again, though never in the same way.
Maybe.
Maybe even through that, even through the curt glances and stilted speech, the curve of a turned shoulder, the prick of an unrequited greeting,
the girl sees something in him, something that intrigues her. There’s just something about the way he moves, the way he talks to people. Maybe she can see that he could or would mean some- thing to her, though she has no idea what or why. And maybe, through a series of random acts and occurrences, awkward interactions and inop- portune flirtations, they get to know each other a little better, and maybe a little better from there. Much better. And maybe, just maybe, they come to rely on one another, to depend on the other just to make it through another day, a flimsy little nest, a circle meant to keep out what must be kept out, to keep in what can never, truly—not re-
And maybe...
Little things. 43
ally anyway—be kept in.
He lashes out.
She fears what’s buried deep inside.
He struggles to control his love. She seeks emo- tional comfort outside the sphere of their...
Companionship.
Maybe they move on. Not easily—never that. Love, in all its many forms, is never easy. Maybe at the start, but anything real starts to hurt after a while. That’s how you know it’s real.
And so maybe the guy is happy now—happier than he was. Or so he tells himself. He’s found a new girlfriend, a girlfriend who treats him well, listens close to his thoughts and feelings, willing to open herself to the possibility of his curvature. And she knows things about him.
cAl seTAr