An Introduction, An older story from EotW

[Gayla]

This was previously posted on EotW. A few of you read it there and left comments; please don't feel as if you have to leave them again here. Much to my surprise, it did get a few publish ratings, though.

An Introduction

I spent today just like all of the others - half in this world and half in one that no longer exists. It's my dirty little secret. It feels like I'm sneaking around, or worse, cheating on Ken.

I spoke openly about it, at first. I reminisced, shared photographs, and reminisced some more. I was relentless, until the eyes of my closest friends and co-workers glazed over, their sad faces turning from me.

"Okay," they had said. "He died some months back. It's understandable that she would be thinking of him."

They made excuses for me, until there were no longer any to be made.

I couldn't talk about it with my husband or my children; they were too close. I joined several Internet groups for forlorn lovers and received sympathy. That worked for quite a long time, until they realized that our romance had ended thirty-eight years ago. Then even the voices of the choir, those in the position to most understand, ostracized me. It wasn't their sympathy I craved, anyway.

It was hard enough getting over our adolescent breakup. Back then, it took more than a year before I was able to get through a day without uttering his name, "Frankie."

It's been two years and three months since his death and the start of this latest obsession. It's worse now. He's preserved, frozen in time in the picture that I carry. I slip it out of my pocket and gaze at it in places that are safe, alone in the elevator, on long walks, in my car after work.

I replay our first meeting, the memory slipping through my mind like the finite sands of an hourglass. He was standing on the corner in front of the Dairy Queen in the summer of '68, looking so fine and so dangerous.

"Hey girl. Where you going?" he called as I was walked down the opposite side of the street.

I paused to answer him, "Nowhere."

"Why don't you come over here then?" he teased. "I'll buy you an ice cream cone."

I crossed the street and stood in front of him, staring down at the sidewalk.

"What's your name?" he asked, grinning that great big Frankie smile. He was seventeen-years-old and didn't have the good sense to have a care in the world.

"Joy," I replied.

"What do you want, Joy?"

The only thing I could think to say was "Vanilla."

I was fifteen. What did I know about lust or love?

After that afternoon, we saw each other every day. I saw nothing else for three years.

I wonder if I can make you understand what it's like to secretly be in love with a memory. I wake up in the morning, my eyes a little more moist than is normal. It's nothing compared to the flood I hold back. People describe me as "preoccupied." I really do feel hollow inside.

Every love song is about him. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face or Worlds Collide are sweet memories of the day we first met. Rick Springfield's I Get Excited reminds me of the way he got on his knees, wrapped his arms around my waist and begged me to make love with him; Bryan Adam's Heaven is what it was like when I finally did. The lyrics of The Vogue's song, Turn Around, explain how I held my heart in my outstretched hands, pleading for him to come back. With or Without You is my anthem. Indigo Girl's I'm Love with Your Ghost, well, that's just who I am now.

When my husband, Ken, and I are together, I'm amazingly adept at listening, smiling, carrying on intelligent conversations. I get lost in the passion when we make love. I think that I can stay in the present with him forever. Then he throw's his legs over the side of the bed, sitting with his back to me. His build is slighter and his muscles sag slightly under the weight of time, but it's Frankie's young buff body I see before me.

Frankie is most alive when others can see him too. After my friends no longer wanted to discuss him, and strangers no longer wanted to exchange emails about him, I realized it was possible to resurrect him through my writing.

Now I've found you, and I wonder how long I'll be permitted to remain and share my stories.

[Marva]

You know, your reminiscenses of Eddie keep taking me back to thoughts of my first husband, Bruce. I wrote the story "Shasta Lake" about his murder. I can see why your keep thinking of Eddie; I still think of Bruce.

[Gayla]

I'm sorry, Marva. I didn't know that piece was about your husband.

This one was inspired by the grief I felt at his death, but otherwise, it's a complete work of fiction. It seemed like a good plot at the time. "Muckaround" was inspired by a real life relationship too, but largely fiction. And the scene in "A Question of Rules" where the waitress says, "would you like a little," yep, I said that. Guess, I often blur the lines between fact and fiction.

Wonder how many others do that?

[Bren]

I liked this, I think I get what you mean. Often, it's the memory which is just as important... Seems like it's hard to define, but you did a good job here.

For some reason, lyrics from a Nirvana song came into my head here. "I miss the comfort in being sad" - In that case it was that Kurt Cobain had got to the stage of feeling nothing. Hence, his subsequent suicide.

But there is a comfort to be had in memories, even sad ones. Personally, I find that they are magnified by the contrast between 'then' and 'now'. Sometimes you can move on and think you've put something behind you, before circumstances change and leave you craving for the past again, or the comfort that the memory brings.

Often what you feel at a certain time is a unique feeling, because of the multitude of external and internal factors that make it a certain way. So it will never be reproduced, or at least never be exactly the same. Being a human is pretty complex, eh? :huh:

Dunno about anyone else, but the things I remember are often trivial details like noises and smells, silences, vibes and weird stuff like that. And yeah, I do use personal stuff for characters in fiction.

Looking back at this post >> Nope, I don't know what I was going on about either! :huh: :blink: