Insensitive

Watercolor of a woman in the rain (Pixabay)

Version 1, parataxis:

It was late. She confessed. We got dressed. I drove her home. She was crying. I said goodbye. She opened the door. It was raining. She walked away. 

Version 2, hypotaxis:

It was late, and there wasn’t anything left to say after she confessed that she had fallen in love with me. As we got dressed, I explained again how I had signed a contract and would be based in different cities over the next several years. While I drove her home, I told her how much I had enjoyed our time together, as brief as it was, but I couldn’t make any kind of commitment. She was crying and seemed inconsolable, so I said goodbye. She opened the door, and it was raining as she walked away.

Explanation:

I wrote these two versions of a scene based on Reena’s prompt of parataxis (no conjunctions) vs hypotaxis (use of connectors to give a flow. I used Jann Arden’s song “Insensitive” as my inspiration for this scene—both versions are from the opposite perspective of the song’s female narrator. I’m including this post in my new “song fiction” collection, which I began with Lucille's Version, a continuation of the Kenny Rogers' song, and next I wrote “Stones” via Neil Diamond, a response to Fandango’s “loosely based” idea.