Assorted Ramblings

Toxic Influence

Well, the title says it all. Just some assorted things I've pumped out over the past 3 or 4 months. Criticism welcome ^.^

Also, original works except #3 which is pretty much derived from another thing I've read.

Spoiler:

3:
My wife passed away about two years ago. I'd be lying if I said I was all that sad to see her go. Our relationship had gone to shit in the last few months or so that it lasted. So here I am: a thirty-something salary man, living my boring monotone life. I'd tried getting back into dating, but nothing seemed... right. I could never figure it out. I was just taking things day by day.

A couple months ago, though, I met a girl. We started out just hanging out occasionaly--she was married, though not horribly happy with it-- but things soon picked up. We began to really go out, and after a couple dates we slept together. But it still felt wrong. I pushed my unease down into the very recesses of my conscience, and hoped it would go away. Things with the girl progressed steadily on; she seemed happy, I pretended to be happy, everything was fine. Or so I thought.

One day about a month into our relationship we're lying in bed at my place, sometime in the middle of the afternoon--the lyrics of that crappy song jump to mind, something about rockets, I think?--and she turns to me and says, "I love you." I stare at her a second, stunned, then realize I can't honestly say it back. She seems to read my reluctance and tells me that its ok, she just wanted to say it. I pushed the matter out of my head, figured I'd come to love her eventually.

Time went on, and our flings became more often. Her husband barely seemed to notice she was gone. Lying in bed after a particularly spirited bout of love making, she turned to me and begged, "Please say you love me. You don't have to mean it, just say it. Please." I look at her for a second, then spoke the biggest lie of my life. She smiled, a sad smile, not the happy kind, and snuggles back up next to me. I tried not to think of what happened, and when she moved to leave, I start climbing up to walk her out. She gave me another one of those sad smiles and told me not to move, she wants to remember seeing me lying in bed, she said. After that she got dressed and left.

I didn't see her for a week after that. Then my phone rang: her number. I picked it up and was surprised to find it was her husband, calling everyone in her contacts to let them know she had killed herself, the same day I said I loved her. He was letting everyone know when and where the funeral was, and yet, even though his wife had just died, he didn't sound sad: he sounded bored and a little irritated. The day of the funeral came, and I sat in the park across the street, watching the church. The husband was standing out in front, checking his watch every couple of minutes. A bell rang and he walked inside. I couldn't bring myself to enter.

Then it hit me. What had been missing; in dating, in my relationship, and in my life since just before my wife died.

I had lost the ability to love.

When exactly it happened was a mystery to me, but it made perfect sense. The girl I'd been seeing was perfect: cute, funny, charming, genuinely into with me, and yet I felt nothing for her. Even the fact that she wanted to hear me say "I love you"--no matter how big of a lie it was--barely phased me.

I think it was this realization, more than anything else, that I mourned that day.

Spoiler:

Xenon FAKKU Writer

13 years ago

1. An intriguing and wonderful thought process. It indeed raises many philosophical questions about our thought processes and why we do the things that make us the most savage. Kudos.

2. Truth is truly true, or so I'd like to think. To raise another theological response: What is the difference between truth and that which is true? If something is true, does that make it the truth? And if that is the case, why is not everything truth if it can be true one way or another? How can we decide what is the ultimate truth if there is one? And if there is one, how will we ever discover it? Or can we? Would we be doomed to never know or accept its beauty? Well done on that short.

3. What a sad and melancholic story. I couldn't stop reading it, though. It was strangely attractive to my reading mind and it seems almost like a horror story, even. I hope that something so devastating would never happen to me, for without the ability to love, in whatever shape or form, live begins to crumble and lose its importance. Very well written, using wonderful tactics.

4. An intriguing monologue, if slightly dim. I find it particularly confused, though, as I tend to disagree with it. Play, school, work, they can all be what we make of them and if we desire a certain path enough to want it, we can find a way to get it. The purpose of all of society forging the education of the young, although it can be used to brainwash, is more often used to open their eyes through exposing them to the education they need to make the decision of what they are interested in and what they want to continue with through their passions. It is in fact structured, but society does not have a choice because anarchy does not breed super-intellectuals that are free, it only breeds chaos and danger to all those around it. My take on the writing, though it is good.

5. Seems to be a nice lyrical adaption of the 4th piece. I only wish I had to tune to go along with it.

A nice collection of your assorted ramblings.

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