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.

Stones (flash fiction)

Golden sandals on a stony beach (Meta AI)

When her father passed away, Angela received tens of millions of dollars in cash and investments at age 24. She quit her teaching job, left her boyfriend, and began to travel the world. She visited every city on her list, some more than once, and stayed in luxurious hotels for months at a time. It felt so good to immerse in local culture, checking out all the museums and restaurants and cute little shops. Angela never stayed in a place long enough to make real friends, but she didn’t care about that, at least not at first.

Sometimes she considered buying a property in one of the beautiful locations, settling down, perhaps starting a family, but a new adventure always beckoned. When she turned 40, alone on a gorgeous Greek island, she realized that it was probably impossible to find a man who wasn’t solely interested in her money. She mulled over the idea of raising a child by herself and decided against it. After all, she had a Norwegian cruise booked for next year and another safari three months later. She didn’t want to cancel them and go on the prowl for a baby daddy instead.

It would be nice to have someone to talk to about all this, Angela thought wistfully, but she hadn’t kept up with any of her former friends or colleagues. These days, she exchanged only courtesies with waiters and hotel staff. No one really cared about her the way her father had. She had no one now to share memories with or even silly inside jokes. Angela riffled through the card file in her mind and came up with nothing, not a single name, not even a distant cousin with whom she could engage in superficial chitchat.

Angela stared out at the endless sea and picked up a smooth stone warmed by the morning sun. She flung it out across the turquoise water, satisfied that it skipped three times. This beach was covered with stones, some dull grey, others glittering like jewels. She picked up a coppery one and a silvery one and filled her hands with so many stones that she began to drop them. Finally, she let them all fall at her feet in a big clatter and stood among the stones with empty hands.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s new Loosely Based prompt. My story is loosely based on Neil Diamond’s 1971 song “Stones” (stones would play inside her head / and where she slept they made her bed / she would ache for love and get but stones).

Lucille's Version

 

Black and white AI image of a woman at a bar

So I finally got the courage to leave Hank, after all those years of acting like a submissive jellyfish, taking care of his four kids (that never had weekends with his ex-wife as Hank had promised), doing a billion chores around the farm (that Hank had promised he would hire help for), not being allowed to work part-time to have my own money, never seeing my friends because Hank didn't like them, and finally never even making love as we were too tired. What kind of marriage is that? Hank refused to go to counseling with me, so I finally went alone, and the counselor told me that she saw no hope for us if Hank refused to even admit there was a problem.

I didn't take anything of his with me, just some of my clothes and the money I made selling eggs at the market. Technically, the chickens belonged to Hank, but I was the one who took care of them. I doubted I would miss Hank or his snotty kids who never listened to me (and Hank never backed me up either), but I would miss those chickens, especially the silkies. My plan was to take a bus to Pittsburgh and go to work at my aunt's coffee shop, and I got as far as Toledo when I had a four-hour wait until the next bus out. I decided to go have a drink at the bar, and, well, the rest is history.

In a bar in Toledo, across from the depot

On a bar stool she took off her ring
I thought I'd get closer, so I walked on over
I sat down and asked her her name
When the drinks finally hit her, she said "I'm no quitter
But I finally quit living on dreams
I'm hungry for laughter and here ever after
I'm after whatever the other life brings

Yeah, I probably had a few too many, but what the heck ~ I wasn't driving. It was fun having a new man pay attention to me and engage in some mutual flirtation, even if it was only for a couple hours. But then Hank showed up! He put on quite a show for the clueless new guy, whining that I was leaving "hungry" kids when I made those little monsters a vat of mac and cheese before I left. And crops in the field, really? He meant the strawberries that he wanted me to sell at his booth at the county fair. What a big phony! But the new guy fell for it. He was some kind of traveling salesman, not too successful by the look of things, and certainly not the brightest bulb.

After he left us I ordered more whiskey

I thought how she'd made him look small

From the lights of the bar room to a rented hotel room

We walked without talking at all

She was a beauty, but when she came to me

She must have thought I'd lost my mind

I couldn't hold her, 'cause the words that he told her

Kept coming back time after time

Fine, whatever. It's not like I was really attracted to him or anything; I just thought it would be nice to have some affection after the drought with Hank. But it was not meant to be. I left the guy sitting by himself in his room, walked back to the bus station, grabbed my stuff out of the locker, and waited for the 10:00 to Pittsburgh. Maybe the drinks would allow me to sleep on the bus and not think about this whole disaster I created by impulsively marrying Hank. Gah! No more men. I needed to find a cheap divorce lawyer as soon as I scraped up some funds, and then I would--

"Excuse me, doll, is this the line for Pittsburgh?" A scruffy 20-something guy holding a guitar case was gazing at me expectantly. He had gorgeous blue eyes.

OK. No more farmers or traveling salesman. I shouldn't rule out all men though. 

~*~

"Lucille" was written by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum. Kenny Rogers recorded/ released it in 1977. I wanted to expand on the song, which was solely from the man's point of view, and create a version from Lucille's POV.