There are few things more grating to me than the insta-love trope seen so often in fiction. This device essentially involves shoving two characters in the same room, then poking them with a stick until they have nowhere else to go but each other’s arms.
The development of their relationship usually looks like this:
It’s been a year since Slink Chunk Press published this short story, so to honor the occasion I am reprinting it here. Enjoy!
They say that everything is made from everything. Matter never disappears, it just becomes new matter. A cell from your skin catches a southeast breeze and eventually gets inhaled by a penguin; an atom expelled in some dinosaur dung finds its way over the eons to your pomegranate tea; a molecule from the sweat that glistened on Caesar’s temple evaporated and is now raining into your car through the window you left open.
We’re all just cosmos junk, recycled. Never ending, only changing. Ever since the universe’s first big sneeze, all that energy has been riding its waves wherever it can go, moving from one place to another. Perpetual tourists, all of us.
So then what happens if a bit of energy changes its mind? Has a change of heart on the metaphysical interstate and decides to detour over the center divider, head the opposite way?
Decides to come back?
There are few things more grating to me than the insta-love trope seen so often in fiction. This device essentially involves shoving two characters in the same room, then poking them with a stick until they have nowhere else to go but each other’s arms.
The development of their relationship usually looks like this:
You are alone today.
And what an aloneness it is.
There is space when you are alone. Such roominess is uncommon for you. You feel compelled to test it, to savor it, so you stretch your arms out wide and wave them in propeller circles like that exercise in middle school gym class. All space. Space in your apartment, space in your head. You wave all the arms of your thoughts, hear the airy swish as they feel out their boundary-less quarters.
You can do things alone that you wouldn’t dare in front of others. Secret thrills.
I am VERY excited to announce that the hilarious e-magazine, Vandercave Quarterly, has published my short story, “The Houseplant in Love with a Girl.” Huzzah!
This is my first publication. Ever. So please excuse me while I flail wildly and probably fall down.
I also highly recommend the other stories and the first issue as well. This mag was my top choice because of how much they made me bust up laughing. The editors rock, and I can’t thank them enough for their publication. 🙂
Pointing Telescopes | S. Noel Brady 