The long beach
“Can you don’t write story about man and woman?” She asked, as she rolled her body over to face me while lying on the vinyl chair. She framed her yet-to-dry hair with her pulled up sunglasses and looked intensely into my eyes.
“Do you mean love story?” I asked her back, thinking over why she has to use the phrase ‘man and woman’. Wasn’t there a clear cut way of presenting the meaning?
“No, it’s not love story, you don’t write about love story.” She responded, lazily rested her head, her cheek on her left palm. “You write about man and woman, their conversations, the most you write about is partner that you long dream of or describe a bit of how she ideally looks like. That’s all”.
I leant my back down at my vinyl chair, laptop still in my hands, I tried to figure out what she meant by that. Afternoon in this long beach was almost like a desert; we could hardly see any tourists strolling or lazing around on the beach. In the sea, there was occasionally surfers struggling to stand on their surfboard but were shortly run over by swallowing waves. I was sure that we were the only two persons who had been paying the most attention to the beautiful beach. “The fragments of stories were like stories plug out from scenes of some love stories. You can be right about that, the scene I chose might not tell readers about love and it’s in my scope to always let the readers to judge the meaning by themselves.”
“So can you stop writing about them?” This time she used the word ‘them’ instead of ‘man and woman’, but I didn’t chase her about the usage of word this time, I knew that if I kept chasing about that, we would never get to the main point. It always happened - we got diverted by the unimportant topics, whenever I realized it before hand, I will quickly make crucial turn at the sudden curve.
“Why is that?” Instead of chasing the use of words, I found her sudden request as clueless.
She looked at me for a while before sitting up straight on her vinyl chair. Habitually, she bent her elbow to reach her shoulder, as if trying to make sure her bikini top was still there, slowly tracing the her bikini stripe from her shoulder to her breast. She took her time doing that, her eyes fixed onto the surfer far in the ocean who finally made it through the big wave and then willingly fell into the water with a messy splash. She traced it like three to four times before she talked again. “I will get jealous of the girl… I mean the girl’s boy friend. Very jealous of him”
I pondered for a while. “I have never written anything about her boy friend?” I replied.
“True, but you have written her too perfectly, too good to be true. In your story, she is almost untouchable. I can’t help to think that she has a boy friend that is so dear to her and they love and care about each other so much, and no one is going to break them. In her boy friend’s arms, she will be the happiest person in the world. I’m not able to do that to her. That makes me jealous.”
“Even to a person that is non-existence? I mean within boundary of fiction.” I asked further. I have to confess that she has plenty of odd ideas about things, given my stories; she could come out extra things which are far out. I liked to hang out and travel with her, she put me to think. For a person who likes to write, she is like an enzyme to story inventions.
“I have never seen him nor am I sure his existence is real, but he is beginning to take on his unique personality, and I vaguely make up his look. A handsome man with perfect features, five feet eight to ten tall, fair skins, good personality and he is from a rich family. It really hurts me painfully whenever I read your stories. I can’t help thinking all these.” She replied, she shook her head in slow motion and looked into my eyes again.
She was a bisexual, but I guess her orientation was a lot more toward liking of the same sex. It was becoming obvious recent years, since she left home and lives alone in city. Her mother became really sad when she found out about her sex orientation, and they grew very unhappy living together, so finally she decided to move out. Her mother never did anything to stop her. I guess her mother just need some time to accept the fact, there was nothing much she could do, and fight with her to get her back was totally out of the question and impossible. She was her daughter after all.
She had a few girl friends throughout these years, but neither one of them she had a happier experience, some just left her when they found out she was actually on another side of usual preferences.
We kept quiet for a while before she started to talk again.
“Have you felt jealous before?” She asked.
“Of course I do” I said.
“Tell me, when was the last time you got jealous?” Her tone got a little bit of urgency, but it was okay. I sensed a sign that she was about to tell me something in return to my next reply.
I thought about her question for a while, quite a long silence. However I couldn’t summon out any images of jealousy, I definitely felt jealous before, that is for sure, as a normal human being with sins as burden at your back, in Christ’s eyes. As I recalled, I just couldn’t remember what happen that could have made me jealous, it might be too long ago already. Or maybe my mind possessed special ability to selectively disregard unhappy feeling without my conscious mind knowing it? At least there was no solid image I could form.
“Can’t quite recall huh?” She looked at my frowning face that was full of thought, and probably realized that I met difficulties in recalling. Then she continued again “That means you are not serious yet, unlike me” she raised her eye brows.
“You mean jealousy is getting serious in you?” I rephrased her sentence and tried to complete her words that sounded like puzzle. I took down a mental note about that.
“I guess you can say that. The negative feeling you get when you want something so much but you can’t get it that is envy. Envious starts as a harmless child, but as it grows into adult, it becomes jealousy, and I’m the one nourishing it all this while, my dangerous subconscious mind. I started to feel it recent years, it’s almost non-existence before that but now it’s taking on shape. It’s growing in me, like a life-terminating cancer forming inside and spreading its deadly cells to all over my body. ” She responded, pulling out a cigarette to her lips, she lighted it up with a match stick and one long inhale. I could see that her hand was a bit shaky when she was holding the cigarette.
“So metaphorically, my perfect and beautiful female character’s boy friend takes form as a result of your jealousy.” I concluded.
While listening to me, I could see that she was satisfied with my elaboration. She took another long inhale of the smoke before exhaled again. She did it slowly and calm, it seemed, like she have all the time in this world, but still couldn’t hide the fact that her hand was shaking slightly. The smoke she blew out disappeared into the clear blue sky of the long beach. I looked out into the far horizon of the ocean, while the surfers were still fighting the waves, one after another.
“Do you mean love story?” I asked her back, thinking over why she has to use the phrase ‘man and woman’. Wasn’t there a clear cut way of presenting the meaning?
“No, it’s not love story, you don’t write about love story.” She responded, lazily rested her head, her cheek on her left palm. “You write about man and woman, their conversations, the most you write about is partner that you long dream of or describe a bit of how she ideally looks like. That’s all”.
I leant my back down at my vinyl chair, laptop still in my hands, I tried to figure out what she meant by that. Afternoon in this long beach was almost like a desert; we could hardly see any tourists strolling or lazing around on the beach. In the sea, there was occasionally surfers struggling to stand on their surfboard but were shortly run over by swallowing waves. I was sure that we were the only two persons who had been paying the most attention to the beautiful beach. “The fragments of stories were like stories plug out from scenes of some love stories. You can be right about that, the scene I chose might not tell readers about love and it’s in my scope to always let the readers to judge the meaning by themselves.”
“So can you stop writing about them?” This time she used the word ‘them’ instead of ‘man and woman’, but I didn’t chase her about the usage of word this time, I knew that if I kept chasing about that, we would never get to the main point. It always happened - we got diverted by the unimportant topics, whenever I realized it before hand, I will quickly make crucial turn at the sudden curve.
“Why is that?” Instead of chasing the use of words, I found her sudden request as clueless.
She looked at me for a while before sitting up straight on her vinyl chair. Habitually, she bent her elbow to reach her shoulder, as if trying to make sure her bikini top was still there, slowly tracing the her bikini stripe from her shoulder to her breast. She took her time doing that, her eyes fixed onto the surfer far in the ocean who finally made it through the big wave and then willingly fell into the water with a messy splash. She traced it like three to four times before she talked again. “I will get jealous of the girl… I mean the girl’s boy friend. Very jealous of him”
I pondered for a while. “I have never written anything about her boy friend?” I replied.
“True, but you have written her too perfectly, too good to be true. In your story, she is almost untouchable. I can’t help to think that she has a boy friend that is so dear to her and they love and care about each other so much, and no one is going to break them. In her boy friend’s arms, she will be the happiest person in the world. I’m not able to do that to her. That makes me jealous.”
“Even to a person that is non-existence? I mean within boundary of fiction.” I asked further. I have to confess that she has plenty of odd ideas about things, given my stories; she could come out extra things which are far out. I liked to hang out and travel with her, she put me to think. For a person who likes to write, she is like an enzyme to story inventions.
“I have never seen him nor am I sure his existence is real, but he is beginning to take on his unique personality, and I vaguely make up his look. A handsome man with perfect features, five feet eight to ten tall, fair skins, good personality and he is from a rich family. It really hurts me painfully whenever I read your stories. I can’t help thinking all these.” She replied, she shook her head in slow motion and looked into my eyes again.
She was a bisexual, but I guess her orientation was a lot more toward liking of the same sex. It was becoming obvious recent years, since she left home and lives alone in city. Her mother became really sad when she found out about her sex orientation, and they grew very unhappy living together, so finally she decided to move out. Her mother never did anything to stop her. I guess her mother just need some time to accept the fact, there was nothing much she could do, and fight with her to get her back was totally out of the question and impossible. She was her daughter after all.
She had a few girl friends throughout these years, but neither one of them she had a happier experience, some just left her when they found out she was actually on another side of usual preferences.
We kept quiet for a while before she started to talk again.
“Have you felt jealous before?” She asked.
“Of course I do” I said.
“Tell me, when was the last time you got jealous?” Her tone got a little bit of urgency, but it was okay. I sensed a sign that she was about to tell me something in return to my next reply.
I thought about her question for a while, quite a long silence. However I couldn’t summon out any images of jealousy, I definitely felt jealous before, that is for sure, as a normal human being with sins as burden at your back, in Christ’s eyes. As I recalled, I just couldn’t remember what happen that could have made me jealous, it might be too long ago already. Or maybe my mind possessed special ability to selectively disregard unhappy feeling without my conscious mind knowing it? At least there was no solid image I could form.
“Can’t quite recall huh?” She looked at my frowning face that was full of thought, and probably realized that I met difficulties in recalling. Then she continued again “That means you are not serious yet, unlike me” she raised her eye brows.
“You mean jealousy is getting serious in you?” I rephrased her sentence and tried to complete her words that sounded like puzzle. I took down a mental note about that.
“I guess you can say that. The negative feeling you get when you want something so much but you can’t get it that is envy. Envious starts as a harmless child, but as it grows into adult, it becomes jealousy, and I’m the one nourishing it all this while, my dangerous subconscious mind. I started to feel it recent years, it’s almost non-existence before that but now it’s taking on shape. It’s growing in me, like a life-terminating cancer forming inside and spreading its deadly cells to all over my body. ” She responded, pulling out a cigarette to her lips, she lighted it up with a match stick and one long inhale. I could see that her hand was a bit shaky when she was holding the cigarette.
“So metaphorically, my perfect and beautiful female character’s boy friend takes form as a result of your jealousy.” I concluded.
While listening to me, I could see that she was satisfied with my elaboration. She took another long inhale of the smoke before exhaled again. She did it slowly and calm, it seemed, like she have all the time in this world, but still couldn’t hide the fact that her hand was shaking slightly. The smoke she blew out disappeared into the clear blue sky of the long beach. I looked out into the far horizon of the ocean, while the surfers were still fighting the waves, one after another.
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