DESCRIPTION
A short story about living as a human being, realising how we view things from a very subjective point of view, and coming to the knowledge of how insignificant most things we place importance upon are. [1,057 words]
I don’t really know what I want anymore, Ellie said, tuning her head breifly away from her beuty magazine to announce her reflection to her teddy bear. She knew she was silly by talking to a stuffed animal, and the act was not spontaneous to her at all, rather forced out of pure loneliness and a whim to be crazy. Her thought sprouted from a train of contemplations about her present life. The monotony of it all. The banality of living for no apparent reason. It puzzled her. She didn’t know much , come to think of it. Like a leaf fluttering through the wind, she was alsways influenced by her surroundings. She KNEW nothing for sure, rather she thought and these thoughts usually crumbled when confronted to the ideas of others.
Ellie looked back down at her magazine thinking how silly everything was. Just plain silly, she thought, while giggling at herself. The four main sections in Cosmopolitan were: beauty, fashion, sex, and men along with a feeble attempt at sounding less superficial with a section called “Work and Careers” which in fact only contained two features, both less than a page long.
Decidedly, everything is relative, relative and insignificant when you come down to it. Maybe she was naïve for thinking this, after all, she had never experienced anything particularly painful or joyful in her entire life. She yearned for a broken heart as she yearned for a confrontation with a pirate when she was little. Ellie lived detached from everything, but hid it well without trying to. She acted normal, but had long realised that she was not-not unless everyone felt the same way as her…lonely, searching, remorsefully self-centered, and unconcerned with everything. It had been very very long since she had shed a tear for anything. There had been a period when Ellie had been lonely, searching, but sensitive. Above all, sensitive of how others percieved her. This phase had passed slowly , yet noone but herself felt the difference. She identified with Meursault from Camus’ “L’etranger”, but the fact that this character was fictional displeased Ellie. Perhaps Camus felt the same way inside…. Suddenly, the vivid memory of Ellie’s french teacher obnoxiously invited itself into her brain. “Meursault was the first real anti-hero, he is a bad person, dead inside, indifferent to his surroundings, he is despicable.” No, no, no, she had to have gotten it wrong—Meursault was heroic in his unique view of the world, his honesty, his daringness not to experience the urge to “feel”. If Ellie’s hero was a vilain, if the only person she found comfort in was in a fictional incarnation of negativity---what did this signify about Ellie herself?
Occasionally, Ellie would have moments of seeing everything from an outsider’s point of view…an extraterrestrial, completely objective way of seeing things. It was difficult to arrive to these moments of---truth. This was one of those moments, looking down at an animated demonstration of cosmo’s daring sex positions-first, the notorious image of lions having sex on the discovery channel entered her mind, then the association of animals to humans, and finally the distinct and puzzling way of seeing things as they veritably are—indiscribable, a vision that passed as soon as Ellie realized that it had occurred. She struggled to hang on the moment, desperately trying to recall what she felt, but all that was left was a feeling of utter despicability towards the human race…like the feeling when one awakes from an intense dream without knowing what the dream was about, only still feeling the fright and rush of emotion from it.
Wanting to escape the moment, Ellie turned on her stereo, casually pressing “play” on the remote control. She had forgotten what CD had been left inside, and felt a mixture between pleasure and sadness at hearing the soothing sound of radiohead. This was exactly how it always was for her now, Ellie concluded, at every moment in her life, she felt an unbalanced combination of happiness and desperation. Maybe she was depressed, most likely this was the case. However, if so, she didn’t want to escape from this state—this state was truth, she did not want to enter into the blinded state of subjective happiness that most humans seemed to be in. Even Radiohead seemed to be obsessed with the animal urges that men experience—romance, did noone notice that this was only an instinct to reproduce that produced a riveting feeling when “in love”? Ellie thought that maybe she should try to enjoy these emotions, even if they were only instincts, and chemicals.
Maybe
Maybe
Maybe
Always maybe, always in between, always nothing.
Ellie was lost. Her mind hesitated back to the idea of committing suicide. It had been resting in the back of her mind for some time now, always relishing the opportunity to spring up and remind Ellie that it was a possibility…always at the most appropriately tempting moments. No, too dramatic, Ellie thought. So many books ended with people killing themselves. Imagining herself as a character in a story, she decided thatshe would not want herself to kill herself. What then? Anything. A perfect opportunity to do something rash, something, something, anything indeed. Something----so that she could experience the repercussions.
An interesting opportunity, and one that could perhaps awaken some emotion or action in her life. She had nothing to lose.
Ellie got out from her bed. The fact that she was wearing pajamas did not bother her, and was almost exciting. She walked out of her door barefoot, and without thinking, turned to go down the street on her left. Seeing a bus approaching, Ellie directed herself to the bus stop. Not running, walking slowly, deciding that she would get oon the bus if their paces came together in perfect harmony. They did, she stepped on the bus without paying for a ticket. She sat on a seat and ressited the proper etiquette to give it up for an older person when the opportunit arose. Instead she sat, looking out the window without really thinking nor observing. Being. Decidedly, that was what she was doing. Being.
That was the end of the story, but i wanted to ask whoever reads this to please review it because the whole reason I put it up to be read is to get feedback and a piece of advice---it would be very helpful for me.
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