Some of this can be considered adulterous.
Then the kind of woman who is afraid to answer the door lest she be attacked by the Savages probably knows next to nothing about Joan of Arc. The arc of that particular story clearly being Joan herself. Joan was also what was at stake, too.
Derivative. Superfluous.
Someone in particular has given little thought to how long such a story should be. If he ever decides to write it, that is.
A story not subjected to editors or critics or awards or anthologies.
It goes without saying someone in particular has his own problems.
Right around this time the marriage seems headed for trouble.
No plot, no backstory. Research is something someone in particular wouldn’t have to do for such a story.
Someone in particular does not feel he is in any way obsessed with the kind of woman who dyes her hair at the age of eighty-four. He does, however, feel he sometimes devotes too much time to the thinking of her. Point being he can stop whenever he wants to.
The actual relationship between someone in particular and the kind of woman who discusses regularity in mixed company isn’t worth mentioning. She in no way dominates his consciousness. Someone in particular often goes weeks without giving the kind of woman who spreads lite butter on lite bread a single thought.
Nothing linear. Nothing avant-garde. No discernible style whatsoever.
And he has never had a single dream in which she has made even a guest appearance. So she is not a part of his subconscious at all.
Essentially a story with no language to get in the way of the telling.
Or is it unconscious? Do dreams belong to the subconscious or the unconscious? Regardless.
Point being someone in particular has a life of his own.
A life that has nothing to do with the kind of woman who harps ceaselessly on the fact she is all alone.
Retaliation. Misogyny. Blatant disregard.
Connubiality.
Marriage without consummation is subject to annulment.
Someone in particular originally conceived of his story in his native language and then translated it into its present form. It is fair to say it has lost something in the translation.
And then the kind of woman who identifies people by their ethnicity is actually bilingual.
Nothing that may pay homage to something done long ago. Or echoes this or calls to mind that. Nothing ahead of its time.
The sanctity of the institution.
None of this should be taken literally. Nor should it be taken figuratively, orally, rectally, intravenously, three times a day, on an empty stomach, with milk, or lying down.
Not realism, impressionism, minimalism, dadaism.
The someone in particular knows his proverbial goose has been long ago cooked.
The someone in particular intended to compose a story disregarding all of the inherent trappings common to such endeavors while still addressing the life and impact of the kind of woman they write stories about. If someone in particular could somehow allude to the great women of history like Joan of Arc doing some kind of juxtaposition then that would be an unexpected bonus.
Someone in particular realizes he possesses certain gifts. He plans on getting up early tomorrow to exchange them for something more practical. Like a toaster-oven. Or a cutting-board.
A story that cannot be dissected or explicated by any would-be dissectors or explicators.
Here comes the bride. All dressed in white.
What certain explicators might call an off-rhyme. Or is it slant-rhyme?
Someone in particular would like to hit it big posthumously.
Does anyone know what comes after all dressed in white?
This way he will have nothing to live up to.
No movements, not neo-this or post-that.
Da-Dum-Ta-Da-Dum-Ta-Da-Dum-Ta...Daaa.
And then the kind of woman who lives well past a hundred, burying husbands, sons, daughters, grandchildren and as yet unborn and distant progeny.
Involve. Revolve. Dissolve. Absolve.
Given such an ill-conceived union between someone in particular and the kind of woman who sits in the backseat of cars because the front passenger side is the death seat, two things happen, both unfortunate. One is it makes the kind of woman who believes everything she is told more important than she actually is. And secondly, there is never an appropriate ending to end with, such a story as this and such a woman as she.
MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE
I LOOKED AROUND TO SEE IF ANYONE WAS WATCHING. Later I made the mistake of socialization.
For the most part there was Mother and Sister and I. They both would call me the man of the house, although everyone knew better.
When I say everyone I mean Mother and Sister and me.
Growing up I was not entirely friendless.
Certainly an array of people, relationships fostered, dissolved. Weaknesses discovered and exploited. Action sometimes brought consequence.
As youths we would stick an unfortunate in between two of us and toss a ball back and forth just over his head. Monkey in the middle, we’d taunt.
Mother would often accuse Sister and me of wrong-doing. Mother’d say, Who broke the needle on Grandmother’s Victrola? Sister’d say, Not I said the blind man to the deaf mute.
Sister’d also say, This is not a dress rehearsal.
Those are the two things I remember her saying. Sister wasn’t much of a talker. I think she may have spoken some with Mother, though. They always seemed to be in cahoots with each other, like it was them against the world.
I believe the second thing she said was intended as motivation to tackle some obstacle I had successfully been avoiding.
But that must have been years later.
I was mistaken when I said Mother would accuse Sister and me of wrong-doing. It was Mother and Sister who would accuse me of wrong-doing.
I’m not certain if Sister didn’t talk to me because I’d done something to her. I don’t remember having done anything that would have prompted her to not speak to me but women are peculiar that way. She may have been shy, too.
There was never any discussion as to why things were the way they were. Why didn’t Sister talk to Brother, for instance?
And how exactly did Father die? If he did, in fact, die.
Mother didn’t encourage us to play together. Go play with your friends, she’d often say. Leave Sister alone, was another thing she said quite a bit. I’d spend most of the time in my room doing I don’t remember what. What went on in Sister’s room I don’t know either. Although I am assuming when I was in my room doing I don’t remember what she was in her room doing likewise.
And when I say the mistake of socialization I mean it in the broadest sense imaginable.
The time when a kid named Brian got hit in the head with a rock thrown by a kid named Benny. It got him just above his left eye, which ballooned up three or four inches. We all thought he’d die, but he didn’t.
Mother’d also say, You’ll see how they turn out.
Mother was present in the house most of the time. I’d smell the cigarette smoke and hear the television going from my room.
I’d stick my head out into the hallway. I’d listen. I wanted to know what went on when I wasn’t around. There were few phone calls, fewer visitors. No family to speak of, only Grandmother, who’d stay with us from time to time and whose Victrola I broke playing a Fats Domino record.