Over the years I've written hundreds of what I call super-short stories; most of these during the time I worked in a call centre and wrote to maintain my sanity - what little of it there is left, ha ha. This was all done on what I suppose you'd call A5 paper which we used as notepaper. I still have all of them and will, from time to time, transcribe (and probably edit slightly) and then post them on the blog.
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It was Michelle who started it.
‘Frank’s very tall isn’t he?’
The others all stopped what they were doing to ponder what she had said.
‘I suppose he is, isn’t he?’ said Tom, a look of bafflement crossing his features, furrowing his brow and casting his pale blue eyes into shadow, ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’
The others murmured their assent. Frank was very tall. They thought they’d probably always known he was very tall, but it wasn’t until it had been brought it up in conversation that they really put a lot of thought into the matter.
‘How tall is he?’ piped in Denise, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.
Another few minutes of murmuring ensued before Michelle, relishing the attention she’d received earlier, broke in with the suggestion that, when Frank arrived – he was due anytime – they should all have a good close look and see for themselves just how tall he was. They all agreed this was a good idea.
Poor Frank didn’t know what hit him.
As soon as he opened the door he found a room full of his giggling, wild-eyed friends, who insisted on taking turns on being measured against him, marking the heights against the wall with a stub of lead pencil Dorothy had produced from the bottom of her voluminous handbag. Frank, knowing his friends' tendencies towards eccentricity, bore this with good grace, but felt obliged to point out that they could have just asked him his height and saved everyone the bother. He was rather dismayed when they erupted into fits of laughter.
It was time for a drink.
Interesting... Kind of the Seinfeld of writing. Making astute and funny observation of the banalities of everyday life. Did they really never notice or was it the proverbial camel straw raised by Denise that allow them to elucidate their thoughts in a sheep-storm of verbiage in the comfort of some socially constructed marquee that allowed to finally say what they really felt? Perhaps they really had never thought about his height and just took the opportunity to have a moment of reflected glory. Or maybe they had never gained the courage to say what they really felt. Whatever the reason, group-think was a strong part of their dictating actions and if they had taken a moment to reflect on that they may have learnt more than just how tall Frank was, and perhaps the world would have been a better place for such introspection.... Or maybe I just spent too much time over-analyzing a simple everyday social interaction... You tell me.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I'd actually say you spent a lot more time thinking about it than I did writing it. I just thought it sounded cool...
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