To Go

“I grow wary of you.”

“You ‘grow wary’?” She exhaled a puff of air.

“Yes.”

“What is this, Richard the Third?”

“No, but that is why I’m breaking up with you.”

She looked at him just underneath his collarbone without replying to his announcement for a while. Even the waiter–not the nosy type–who had just served the couple dinner spied at them through the glass front wall of the restaurant. The quiet knife-dangling between them had been all-too noticeable. The weather was still. They stood, not walked, on the sidewalk. Both of their bellies remained near-empty.

“You’re sure? You absolutely mean it?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Because…you’re bound to have something off about you since you want to be with me,” he said. He rolled a pebble on the ground back and forth with the bottom of his shoe.

Her mouth opened and stayed that way. Then her jaw moved finally. “I have no idea which one of us is insulted more by that statement.” She walked past him and kept walking.

“Where are you going?”

She was already too far to hear his question. He leaned against the building.

That’s really it? She’s just gonna go? he wondered.

19 thoughts on “To Go”

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    1. I’m not sure what part you want explained so I will now launch into an overexplanation…since you asked for it. (hopefully not downtalk) hahahha and because I talk a lot sometimes.

      Anyway, I wanted to practice some very short fiction and that’s what this is. And I’m not too happy with it. It’s just super meh which is why it is on my blog and not being rushed out to a publisher somewhere. hahah. I found the phrasing funny “growing wary” like who the fuck talks like that in dead ass seriousness to someone they’re close to? And then the girl’s comeback made me laugh. And that’s about it. It’s not really well-written exactly. I’m an amateur. But fuck do I love writing and do I love trying!

      For some reason I had this line pop into my head yesterday– “if you like me there’s something wrong with you” –so that’s the non-clear answer as to where the subject matter came from. I really don’t know for sure why. I have a vague memory of a friend saying something like that a while back. I remember thinking how much hugeness (pain/sadness/self-hate/contempt for others/paranoia/assumption) is accordioned into a statement like that.

      The idea sticks in me like a burr. That a person rejects someone and in doing so, seemingly rejects themself along with the other person. But it’s ambiguous in my mediocre story here. We have no idea of the circumstances that would bring a person to make a statement like that to their girlfriend. We don’t know if she’s done something or represents something if he has or neither.

      What’s further fascinating to me is rejection of someone before an actual problem has happened.

      Has this story ever happened to me personally? No. I just made it up.

      There is a male character who is super serious about himself and breaking up. Uses strange phrasing to do so. The girl is a little different. Trying to make a joke. Trying to lower the tension. But it obviously hurts her since she can’t look at him in the eyes once he makes his statement. And he isn’t wholly behind it either since he’s looking at the ground playing with a rock.

      She walks away without saying much more than that is a hurtful train of thought for both you and for me. In the end, he wants her not to leave, revealing that maybe it is himself he has a problem with more than her.

      What’s the point? I guess here we have a real part of life: people making decisions based on thin air and our own self-worth. Maybe also, the reality of hurting someone is a method of hurting yourself. Or wanting to hurt yourself.

      Obviously there isn’t some clear cut problem between these two people, otherwise why would they have both sat down to have dinner for a breakup? The problem is vague and hard to grasp, as are the majority of people’s problems. It’s messy. Most of us don’t have a clear cut, “yeah that guy punched me in the stomach while I was pregnant” so it’s a set-in-stone easy decision what to do next. (And no I’ve never been physically abused, just making up an example.)

      The featured image. I wanted something about sleeping rabbits. (Trying not to talk down) Rabbits usually represent fertility, birth, rebirth, softness, cycle of life etc. (Google the three rabbits/hares symbol with the ears touching in the center. It’s a big whole thing and crosses over many cultures and religions. It’s cool.) So with this sourness between the couple in my story, the “rabbits are sleeping” now. The gestation phase of their relationship is dormant now and might die. There may never be a rebirth and the softness and vulnerability they may have once had is asleep. Will they wake up? Who knows. I mean the rabbits are facing each other so that’s nice. They don’t hate each other.

      The title serves as a double duty. There is a decision about going or staying up in the air as well as the fact that the characters were both too upset to eat and most likely had to take their dinners to-go in a box.

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      1. You know, there was a guy punching a woman in the stomach while she was pregnant in Rose Madder by Stephen King. It happened on the 2nd page, so its not a spoiler or anything.
        Good Rachsplain, Rach. The elder Rachies would be proud 😀 😀 😀 😀

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          1. Elder Girl. Elder Boy. Elder Rachies. The Elder gods. The big great old ones. Interestingly, was that something you aimed for or did that mini-Cthulhu-thing-a-majig happened on its own in the frog story? Either way, I loved it. And holy shit, Rach, that part with the thing coming out of the water, that was, for Abe personally, scary. I loved it. And I loved the whole revelatory toad (THE AGNOSTIC TOADS HAHAHAHAH) thing because, and dig this, there’s a whole thing at the start of this novel called Nos4r2 by Joe Hill where a similar revelation takes place, and its fucking scary, and yours was scarier, and man am I amped!

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