Fiction (A short prose piece)
My last piece didn't go down so well - I wonder if this will be received better. I doubt it.
::
They say that when you can't think of anything to write you just need to go and sit outside - preferably somewhere busy - and watch people. Watch them going about their daily business; watch them meeting their friends and hugging and pretending to listen to conversations; watch them eating lunch; watch them spending their money and forgetting why they're even there.
They say that this stimulates you, and the greatest stories are about normal people. It's sort of true, but not in the way that They keep saying. They say that a great work of fiction is really only an interpretation of reality. Sometimes...sure, but I beg to differ.
Do you watch people?
Go on, stop for a minute, the next time you're out. Take a seat, even if it's crowded and you have to put up with some rushed, overzealous businessman spilling his lunch everywhere. Stocks are up have to get back to work. Watch the people. Watch him. Watch the ones following the lines along the pavement, ants back to the queen. Little black shoes going 'tap tap tap' on the pavement until they all sound the same and they all look as different as they're not.
Nobody is really doing anything special. They pretend; you and I, we pretend, don't we? Why is anyone else any different?
The man over there at the tram stop is waving his arms around and pointing at a bicycle tyre. It doesn't mean anything. Perhaps his daughter is turning five and he's bought her her first bike. The excitement - the overwhelming, incomparable joy that a child from his own loins brings him - has meant that he can't help but share the news, even with a stranger. The lady holding the tyre - she's about thirty, perhaps she's just replacing a flat, on her way back home, with a migraine, why won't this man leave me alone? - is nodding, distracted. Or trying to be distracted.
But I doubt it.
It's all a work of fiction, ultimately. These people have no stories, there are no stories worth telling unless you can tell a story. We kid ourselves by looking to ourselves, to others who are us; watching them and looking for some vague, concealed, hint as to their ulterior motive. The man on the corner there, leaning against the wall, is searching for something in his pocket. He's in the city, perhaps he's a drug dealer waiting for his next client. Hand on his mobile phone? No, he's too well-dressed to be a dealer. Maybe he's a lawyer with on his lunch break. He's fiddling, nervous as he waits for a hooker to arrive. He'll take her to a swanky hotel and have sex, guilty sex, with her, only for it to wreck his marriage even more than it has already been wrecked. Now he's done that he has to tell his wife. Look at him, he's already made the decision. He must be a masochist.
I'm walking back towards the train station wondering if I've just missed a train and I might have to wait. At least I'll get to watch these people, make their lives up. I'm in the window. I can see my awkward steps in the reflection, bumping into strangers. Some glares, some nods, some 'sorry's. No one's really sorry, it's what they're supposed to say. Maybe they were watching me, and on auto-pilot they said what they should?
I'm walking with a limp. Perhaps I'm a sportsman. No, my clothes are too 'artsy'. Maybe I'm the drug dealer? Maybe something went wrong on my last deal and I ended up paying for it. I got myself in too deep and ended up hurt. Or maybe I just tripped over.
I'm a fiction though, so it's okay. I'll just keep making me up.
My last piece didn't go down so well - I wonder if this will be received better. I doubt it.
::
They say that when you can't think of anything to write you just need to go and sit outside - preferably somewhere busy - and watch people. Watch them going about their daily business; watch them meeting their friends and hugging and pretending to listen to conversations; watch them eating lunch; watch them spending their money and forgetting why they're even there.
They say that this stimulates you, and the greatest stories are about normal people. It's sort of true, but not in the way that They keep saying. They say that a great work of fiction is really only an interpretation of reality. Sometimes...sure, but I beg to differ.
Do you watch people?
Go on, stop for a minute, the next time you're out. Take a seat, even if it's crowded and you have to put up with some rushed, overzealous businessman spilling his lunch everywhere. Stocks are up have to get back to work. Watch the people. Watch him. Watch the ones following the lines along the pavement, ants back to the queen. Little black shoes going 'tap tap tap' on the pavement until they all sound the same and they all look as different as they're not.
Nobody is really doing anything special. They pretend; you and I, we pretend, don't we? Why is anyone else any different?
The man over there at the tram stop is waving his arms around and pointing at a bicycle tyre. It doesn't mean anything. Perhaps his daughter is turning five and he's bought her her first bike. The excitement - the overwhelming, incomparable joy that a child from his own loins brings him - has meant that he can't help but share the news, even with a stranger. The lady holding the tyre - she's about thirty, perhaps she's just replacing a flat, on her way back home, with a migraine, why won't this man leave me alone? - is nodding, distracted. Or trying to be distracted.
But I doubt it.
It's all a work of fiction, ultimately. These people have no stories, there are no stories worth telling unless you can tell a story. We kid ourselves by looking to ourselves, to others who are us; watching them and looking for some vague, concealed, hint as to their ulterior motive. The man on the corner there, leaning against the wall, is searching for something in his pocket. He's in the city, perhaps he's a drug dealer waiting for his next client. Hand on his mobile phone? No, he's too well-dressed to be a dealer. Maybe he's a lawyer with on his lunch break. He's fiddling, nervous as he waits for a hooker to arrive. He'll take her to a swanky hotel and have sex, guilty sex, with her, only for it to wreck his marriage even more than it has already been wrecked. Now he's done that he has to tell his wife. Look at him, he's already made the decision. He must be a masochist.
I'm walking back towards the train station wondering if I've just missed a train and I might have to wait. At least I'll get to watch these people, make their lives up. I'm in the window. I can see my awkward steps in the reflection, bumping into strangers. Some glares, some nods, some 'sorry's. No one's really sorry, it's what they're supposed to say. Maybe they were watching me, and on auto-pilot they said what they should?
I'm walking with a limp. Perhaps I'm a sportsman. No, my clothes are too 'artsy'. Maybe I'm the drug dealer? Maybe something went wrong on my last deal and I ended up paying for it. I got myself in too deep and ended up hurt. Or maybe I just tripped over.
I'm a fiction though, so it's okay. I'll just keep making me up.
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