You can listen to this flash fiction piece here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EElDj-mOF1s&t=2s
This week she married Dominic, Timmy, and Joshua. Last week
it was Nico, Kyle and Aja. Lara lost count of how many men she had married in
the past year alone.
She married “Positively huggable” who wrote “Hi! I’m Connor,
you’re beautiful, wanna chat?”
She married “UK4ever” who wrote “You’re stunning, do you
drink? [Glass of wine emoji]”
Do I drink? That’s what UK4ever wants to know? Lara sighed And why the glass of
wine emoji? What purpose does it serve? She shook her head.
UK4ever’s photo was taken at a crowded place, I bet it’s a
bar, Lara thought. He clearly had his arm around someone who was now cropped
out of the photo, I bet it’s his ex Lara guessed. It made her a little
sick that the picture could have been his and his ex’s favorite picture of them,
once. She imagined it as the wallpaper on both their cell phones, or in a
silver frame on top of a mantle. Now the “significant other” was casually cut
out, and the once cherished memory, used as bait.
“Do you ever feel like everyone we meet in our adult life, is
a replica of someone we’ve met before?” Lara imagined herself asking James, a
man she seriously considered chatting with on the site, because his profile
started with how important his eight-year-old daughter was to him, and that
he’s in the medical field. A doctor who puts his daughter first, Lara
raised her eyebrows, impressed. But she immediately imagined how it will all go
down the toilet. Her emotional baggage, his emotional baggage, her refusal to
compromise, men’s philosophy on how compromise was not the same as sacrifice
that the latter is bad but the former is good. Her lack of patience with men’s
philosophies that somehow always served their personal interest, and led women to
compromise in relationships. Then the regret for the time invested, then the
resentment. It made her so tired just thinking about it. But why did she tire
herself thinking about it? “A woman’s imagination is very rapid, it jumps from
admiration, to love, from love to matrimony in a moment” Jane Austin wrote in
Pride and Prejudice.
She didn’t have to know those men for years to know who they
were, or what it was like to be with them, or how it will all end, that it will
always end she had no doubt. They were all the same, either the destructive
passion that took her breath away, or the dear old thing, that waited for her,
waited until the red hot scream of desire, died down. Either the temptation of
the unattainable, or the quiet boredom of what was already possessed. The first
died because it burned itself out, because of it’s intensity it could not last.
The second never really glowed to begin with, a flame never came forth from it,
a cold piece of coal that had the potential to burn had anyone cared enough to lite
or fan it.
For Lara being with one man is being with all of them, they
were shallow, unimaginative creatures who had no intuition, wooden cold actors
in a poorly written play.
Lara wasn’t on this site because she was looking for a
relationship; being with someone always made her nostalgic for her solitude.
She wasn’t there looking for sex, because the last time she
had sex was four years ago and it was terrible, “the guy was wrong” she argued
to herself. “The timing was wrong” when she tried again. “The feeling wasn’t
there” after her last attempt, then she stopped. Not intending to become
celibate, but the months passed, then the years passed, and men became not the
other gender, but just the other, not arousing in her any curiosity or passion.
I should be feeling something now, she thought to herself when Brad Pitt’s
ripped, tanned, half-naked body filled the cinema screen, when she went to see
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
‘I’m not attracted to men anymore, but I’m not attracted to
women either, ha! I’m in sexual limbo!’ She imagined sharing this to James, but she knew she
wouldn’t, and it saddened her, that in all her relationships, even in her
friendships with men she had to hide, she always hid some part of herself.
Why was Lara here then? Why did she pay to be on this site?
She’s here because she’s thirty nine. Because she still feels
young Monday to Wednesday, feels old Thursday to Saturday, and reserves Sundays
for not feeling. She’s here because she doesn’t mind the grey hairs multiplying
fast, but can’t stop thinking that they represent a ticking clock, a ticking
clock for what? She won’t be bullied by outdated cultural expectations.
She’s here because she’s vain, she wonders if she can still
attract younger men? How young? Successful men? How successful?
She’s here because being here is not the answer
She’s here because she’s a coward, hiding behind a screen,
and having imaginary conversations in her head is easy. No risks. No
disappointments.
She’s here because all the men messaging her, asking her to
chat, or out for a drink, are not real, none of it was real, and fantasy is the
softest, warmest bed she’s ever slept in.
