It was in the China
Dan was a very civilized man. Whenever he went on dates he always folded his napkin very properly and placed it in his lap with the most delicate of motions. His apartment was pristine with a place for everything and everything in its place. His walls were decorated with copies of famous paintings, everything from Botticelli to Warhol. Not both in the same room of course. That would never look right. His bathroom was tidy. The toilet seat was never left up, even though Dan didn’t even have a reason to put it down. Dan was just that kind of man.
When girls came to his house the two would sit and they’d talk for hours about lost loves and people who break hearts. Both of them would look into each other’s eyes and say to themselves “but you’re not like that, are you?” Never out loud of course. That would break the mood and put an awful lot of pressure on a blooming relationship that would never become “intimate”, should we say, if thoughts were exposed at any moment other than the exact right one. Which at this point consisted of things like “You have a very fascinating life” and “it was so brave of you to stand up to him like that” or “Is that the natural color of you eyes?”
Dan had a high paying job at a corrupt law firm and a menagerie of interns underneath him. His office was just as pristine as his apartment, if not more so due to his fifty-fourth floor spectacular view of the New York City skyline. There’s not much more a guy could ask for in his life, except true love of course. It’s always the key ingredient to having it all. Then again it’s not exactly a surprise Dan didn’t have this particular ingredient. It’s a complicated story. Or more of an abstract feeling built from a plethora of instances and examples. Possibly even a few brain malfunctions due to a certain lack of cells in that area. Maybe even a knock to the head as a small child? Could that cause a man to forget your anniversary? Or maybe he was hit by a car at some point that he just never told me about. Perhaps the car came out of nowhere and he was distracted because he was reaching for a cigarette from his pocket at the time and in order to tell me the story about the brain altering car wreck he would have had to divulge the fact that he was smoking and he knew I hated it when he smoked. What do you think? Does a man cheat on you when he is in love? Does he forget to feed your dog when you go on a business trip for three days?
See I think if you had met Dan you’d see what you want to see. It’s not like he went looking for hearts to break. It’s not like he had a detailed plan written up for how he was going to destroy the next one beneath the neatly folded boxers in his dresser drawer. Believe me, I’ve checked. But you’ve got to understand there’s a reason I killed him. It was in the gloss of his fine china. The trick he played on himself. It was a mental gap he filled with physicality. And boy was that china shiny. Let me tell you, it could block out the sun.
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3 comments:
I really liked the beginning of the story, it had a good rythym to it that made the characters odd sense of cleanliness very believable. There is something in the switch from telling the story third person to telling it first person that i don't think works for me. I think that there needs to either be something to break it up, or she needs to speak the entire way through, or perhaps you need to make that part of the paper dialogue. Other than that i like the shortness of the peice, the way it just gets to the whole point of things and doesn't really play around at all. Very intriguing!
I agree that the switch from third person to first is confusing. Also, having all the action take place in the past without many details makes the story less exciting. Maybe the beginning could be her spying on Dan and then we find out he is her ex-lover and then she kills him. The bit about his cleaniness versus his personal messyness with other people's hearts is interesting. Give more detail to the contrast. Good start!
Definitely a good start. You add purposeful details in the right places and at the right times-- it flows well. I liked how you withheld the details of Dan's appearance since it takes me back to my own life, some gent who fit his description, and imports his look to Dan's. Also, the third person switch didn't bother me because I thought it was feasible that all this business about Dan could be related to me from another party, you know? So that's cool.
I do think, though, that there needs to be more motivation about why she whacked Dan. So far, Dan sounds like an all right guy. Really anal retentive and all that, but it's perfect and it works. He forgot the anniversary... now he's kind of a jerk. But if that was enough purpose to make her do it, it's a little tough for me to buy. I just need to know more about why she needed to destroy him, which might mean knowing more about her through her descriptions of Dan. Make us laugh and sympathize and agree with her in some awful way, or make me hate her for killing him off.
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