timbot
05-14-2009, 11:10 PM
Here's a story I've worked on a little. There's a lot more to it, but from what I've written so far this is the most complete section.
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“I don’t like butterflies. I know most people do, but I don’t, not even a little,” So Yoon told Eric as they walked through the park together. Of course, he didn’t know what she said because she didn’t say it in English. He liked hearing it, though. He liked to hear her in her native tongue, especially when it was directed to him. At first it was all a jumble to him, sounds and syllables and words tossed randomly on top of each other in a mad heap. But slowly, with concentrated effort he began to straighten it out. He learned to separate one unknown word from another, and to pick out the meter of her speech.
So Yoon never translated what she said, and Eric never asked. He did ask once what kind of things she said.
“Different things,” she told him. “Sometimes silly things, sometimes serious. Sometimes….I ask you questions?”
“Do you ever lie to me?”
“Not lie. I say things like stories . . . Mmm…fairytales. But not lies about me or . . . About you.”
There was a strange intimacy communicated through these words. It was like sharing secrets, but instead of being the only one who knew what she said, he was the one who didn’t know. It was as if the things she said were too secret even for him. She could be telling him her deepest fears or most secret desires and he wouldn’t know. Yet, he felt that at some level he did know. He imagined the words like butterflies lifting off from her tongue, flitting briefly round his brain before alighting softly, nearly unnoticed on some part of his soul. That’s where the little messages stayed, unidentified, immeasurable but undeniable.
“You look beautiful today,” she told him as they walked through the mall. People walking by understood her, but he didn’t.
“Once, I punched my younger sister and knocked out one of her baby teeth,” she whispered lying on top of him, panting softly and partially covered by rumpled sheets. They arrived at the movies early once, and she sat next to him in the lobby whispering into his ear about the first time she fell in love. When she stopped whispering after nearly twenty minutes, he noticed her eyes were red and wet with tears. He didn’t ask her why, but pulled her close and put her hand on his heart that she might feel her flying words coming to a rest.
They sat together in a coffee shop looking at each other and talking. She put her hand, warm from her cup of tea, down on the cool, dark wood of the table. When she moved her hand to sip her tea again, he let his rest where hers had been, feeling the condensation left there. The sensation, like so many things with her, was more than he expected. He felt a warmth there, and a faint vibration, as if she had not moved her hand and he was feeling the blood humming through the capillaries of her fingertips. He thought at first that it might just be his imagination, but as they talked, he let his fingers drift secretly through wherever her hand had just been and every time he could feel her. When she excused herself to go to the restroom he tried t pick up her tea cup as a final test of the experience. The feeling he got from the cup was so unexpected he nearly upset it as he jerked his hand away.
Eric didn’t tell her about the feeling at first. He enjoyed it as a secret pleasure all his own. He would find ways to touch things she had touched without her noticing, relishing the tingle her body left behind. He also withheld telling her because he was afraid. He was afraid she would tell him other men had felt the same thing and what had been his personal pleasure would immediately become one already experienced by so many strange men.
So, for several weeks he kept it secret from her. Then, one night while they were having dinner she stopped and looked down at this hand.
“Why do you do that?” she asked without reproach.
“What?” he said, leaving his hand where it was, on the spot hers had been only a minute before.
‘When I move my hand, you put yours hand there. You’ve been doing it all dinner.”
He paused and looked at her for a moment, considering. “I can feel you,” he said, putting aside all his fear about other men. “If you touch something, and then I touch it, I get a feeling. It’s like . . . it’s almost like electricity, but it’s good. I like the feeling.”
“Really? Does everyone give you that feeling?”
“No, you’re the only one. It’s a little strange, but I like it.”
So Yoon smiled at him. “Good, I like it too.”
After that night, she began to play a game with him. Whenever she came to his house she would find one or two things to touch when he wasn’t looking or when he was out of the room. She always picked things he likely wouldn’t touch while she was there and perhaps not for days or weeks. She might touch a shirt in his closet that he would wear to work later that week, or carefully skew a picture hanging on the wall just enough that he wouldn’t notice until the next time he was alone and unhurried in his house. She held a bottle of ibuprofen in her hands then replaced it in his medicine cabinet so he could feel her nearby the next time he had a headache. Whenever she left, he had to fight himself to not run all over his house touching everything in search of her essence. He restrained himself by telling himself that’s not why she did it, and by remembering how much better it felt to get that shock when he wasn’t searching for it. Every time he felt it, it was as if she were right there with him. The feeling made him smile. Later it would make him cry, but in the first days of the game didn’t know that yet and still looked forward to her surprise.
“I know this will hurt you, but I have to tell you,” she paused and forced herself to look at his face and see that content smile he got on his face every time she spoke Korean to him. To look at him like that without showing any emotion was the punishment she imposed on herself for what she was doing to him. “I need to tell you I’ve been seeing someone else.”
He continued to smile for a moment, but then the smile faded and for an instant her heart raced and her stomach turned in fear that head understood what she said.
“Was that Korean?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“Yes.” She told him, hiding the fear that was now leaving her.
“Hmm…It just sounded different somehow.”
“Maybe I was mumbling,” she shrugged.
“Maybe.” He smiled at her and the moment passed.
She confessed to him every day she saw him, always using different words, but never words he understood. The first few times he still had that strange feeling that something had changed, but without an explanation, he grew accustomed to it. It mad her hurt to see him smile at what should have broken his heart, but she felt she deserved that pain, and was still too scared to face his inevitable pain. She even continued to play her game of touching his things, paralyzed by fear and unable to break the status quo.
No pain she experience was as great as the pain she imagined would come and knew must come when the truth was finally revealed. So she went on day after day pretending things were normal, afraid to tell him otherwise, but at the same time hoping he would notice and confront her. The problem was she was incapable of noticing. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, or was unobservant. He cared as much as anyone could and noticed even the smallest changes in her moods. But this kind of transgression was so far outside the realm of possibilities he though her capable of that he didn’t even consider it.
And the days continued for her, split between two men, one of whom caused her great pain without knowing it, but whom she feared could not live without her, and the other who, though he sometimes knowingly caused her pain, and though he could survive without her, she felt she would never be happy again without. It was his fearlessness toward life without her that finally forced her into action.
“This has got to end,” He told her. “I know it’s not easy, and you don’t want to hurt his feelings, but you have to do something. You’ve got a week. Either figure out what to say and end it, or we’re done. I’m not going to waste my time with a girl who can’t decide what she wants.” She always felt an urge to address him as “sir” when he talked to her like that. She never said it, but the word always came into her mind. Part of her hated that he talked to her like that, but she knew he was right and knew she had to hear it if anything was going to happen.
So, she went to Eric, the man she had betrayed, and she told him about the other man. It wasn’t easy for her, but she knew she had to do it. She came to his apartment as she so often did, which felt like a betrayal because she had done it so often when things were good between them. On the way over she tried to prepare herself for his reaction. She ran through her apology over and over. She got herself ready for all the tings she would have to say, and all the questions she would have to answer from him. To her relief he had made an easy dinner, spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce. They ate dinner and made small talk as they had so many times before, but soon enough the time came when things couldn’t be like they had been all the times before. She was helping him wash the dishes, her hands plunged into the hot, soapy water when she confessed to him. “I need--” she stopped and cleared her throat then began again in English. “I need to tell you something.” Her eyes were attracted to the floor. She was suddenly interested in the nuances of his shoes. But, she made herself look at him because she could feel him looking at her. It nearly broke her spirits to look him in the eyes because he looked at her so ready to hear what she had to say, totally oblivious to the pain she was going to bring him. She looked into his eyes and took a deep breath to prepare herself. “I’ve been seeing someone else. I’m sorry, I can’t really say how it happened--” but he cut her off before she should go any further.
“Oh, I see. Well, you don’t need to stay and wash dishes, it’s ok.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No no, it’s ok,” he said to her. She hated to see him so obviously lying.
“It’s just that he. . .”she started, trying to give the answers to the questions she thought he would ask, but didn’t.
“No, don’t worry about it. These things happen all the time.” She wanted him to be angry, to ask questions, but he didn’t and that hurt her more than his anger could have. “Well, I can finish the dishes, they’re almost done anyway. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again sometime,” he said to her without a hint of sarcasm. He finished drying the tea cup he had in his hands and put it away, then started on the plate, not even giving her the dignity of trying to rush her out of the door.
She set a plate on the drying rack. “Well,” she said for lack of anything else to say, then dried her hands and started to walk toward the door. He walked her to the door.
“Have a good night.”
“Yeah . . . You too.” She said and walked to her car. He walked back to the kitchen, dunked his hands into the water and began to weep. He didn’t try to stop himself as his tears dropped into the dishwater.
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“I don’t like butterflies. I know most people do, but I don’t, not even a little,” So Yoon told Eric as they walked through the park together. Of course, he didn’t know what she said because she didn’t say it in English. He liked hearing it, though. He liked to hear her in her native tongue, especially when it was directed to him. At first it was all a jumble to him, sounds and syllables and words tossed randomly on top of each other in a mad heap. But slowly, with concentrated effort he began to straighten it out. He learned to separate one unknown word from another, and to pick out the meter of her speech.
So Yoon never translated what she said, and Eric never asked. He did ask once what kind of things she said.
“Different things,” she told him. “Sometimes silly things, sometimes serious. Sometimes….I ask you questions?”
“Do you ever lie to me?”
“Not lie. I say things like stories . . . Mmm…fairytales. But not lies about me or . . . About you.”
There was a strange intimacy communicated through these words. It was like sharing secrets, but instead of being the only one who knew what she said, he was the one who didn’t know. It was as if the things she said were too secret even for him. She could be telling him her deepest fears or most secret desires and he wouldn’t know. Yet, he felt that at some level he did know. He imagined the words like butterflies lifting off from her tongue, flitting briefly round his brain before alighting softly, nearly unnoticed on some part of his soul. That’s where the little messages stayed, unidentified, immeasurable but undeniable.
“You look beautiful today,” she told him as they walked through the mall. People walking by understood her, but he didn’t.
“Once, I punched my younger sister and knocked out one of her baby teeth,” she whispered lying on top of him, panting softly and partially covered by rumpled sheets. They arrived at the movies early once, and she sat next to him in the lobby whispering into his ear about the first time she fell in love. When she stopped whispering after nearly twenty minutes, he noticed her eyes were red and wet with tears. He didn’t ask her why, but pulled her close and put her hand on his heart that she might feel her flying words coming to a rest.
They sat together in a coffee shop looking at each other and talking. She put her hand, warm from her cup of tea, down on the cool, dark wood of the table. When she moved her hand to sip her tea again, he let his rest where hers had been, feeling the condensation left there. The sensation, like so many things with her, was more than he expected. He felt a warmth there, and a faint vibration, as if she had not moved her hand and he was feeling the blood humming through the capillaries of her fingertips. He thought at first that it might just be his imagination, but as they talked, he let his fingers drift secretly through wherever her hand had just been and every time he could feel her. When she excused herself to go to the restroom he tried t pick up her tea cup as a final test of the experience. The feeling he got from the cup was so unexpected he nearly upset it as he jerked his hand away.
Eric didn’t tell her about the feeling at first. He enjoyed it as a secret pleasure all his own. He would find ways to touch things she had touched without her noticing, relishing the tingle her body left behind. He also withheld telling her because he was afraid. He was afraid she would tell him other men had felt the same thing and what had been his personal pleasure would immediately become one already experienced by so many strange men.
So, for several weeks he kept it secret from her. Then, one night while they were having dinner she stopped and looked down at this hand.
“Why do you do that?” she asked without reproach.
“What?” he said, leaving his hand where it was, on the spot hers had been only a minute before.
‘When I move my hand, you put yours hand there. You’ve been doing it all dinner.”
He paused and looked at her for a moment, considering. “I can feel you,” he said, putting aside all his fear about other men. “If you touch something, and then I touch it, I get a feeling. It’s like . . . it’s almost like electricity, but it’s good. I like the feeling.”
“Really? Does everyone give you that feeling?”
“No, you’re the only one. It’s a little strange, but I like it.”
So Yoon smiled at him. “Good, I like it too.”
After that night, she began to play a game with him. Whenever she came to his house she would find one or two things to touch when he wasn’t looking or when he was out of the room. She always picked things he likely wouldn’t touch while she was there and perhaps not for days or weeks. She might touch a shirt in his closet that he would wear to work later that week, or carefully skew a picture hanging on the wall just enough that he wouldn’t notice until the next time he was alone and unhurried in his house. She held a bottle of ibuprofen in her hands then replaced it in his medicine cabinet so he could feel her nearby the next time he had a headache. Whenever she left, he had to fight himself to not run all over his house touching everything in search of her essence. He restrained himself by telling himself that’s not why she did it, and by remembering how much better it felt to get that shock when he wasn’t searching for it. Every time he felt it, it was as if she were right there with him. The feeling made him smile. Later it would make him cry, but in the first days of the game didn’t know that yet and still looked forward to her surprise.
“I know this will hurt you, but I have to tell you,” she paused and forced herself to look at his face and see that content smile he got on his face every time she spoke Korean to him. To look at him like that without showing any emotion was the punishment she imposed on herself for what she was doing to him. “I need to tell you I’ve been seeing someone else.”
He continued to smile for a moment, but then the smile faded and for an instant her heart raced and her stomach turned in fear that head understood what she said.
“Was that Korean?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“Yes.” She told him, hiding the fear that was now leaving her.
“Hmm…It just sounded different somehow.”
“Maybe I was mumbling,” she shrugged.
“Maybe.” He smiled at her and the moment passed.
She confessed to him every day she saw him, always using different words, but never words he understood. The first few times he still had that strange feeling that something had changed, but without an explanation, he grew accustomed to it. It mad her hurt to see him smile at what should have broken his heart, but she felt she deserved that pain, and was still too scared to face his inevitable pain. She even continued to play her game of touching his things, paralyzed by fear and unable to break the status quo.
No pain she experience was as great as the pain she imagined would come and knew must come when the truth was finally revealed. So she went on day after day pretending things were normal, afraid to tell him otherwise, but at the same time hoping he would notice and confront her. The problem was she was incapable of noticing. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, or was unobservant. He cared as much as anyone could and noticed even the smallest changes in her moods. But this kind of transgression was so far outside the realm of possibilities he though her capable of that he didn’t even consider it.
And the days continued for her, split between two men, one of whom caused her great pain without knowing it, but whom she feared could not live without her, and the other who, though he sometimes knowingly caused her pain, and though he could survive without her, she felt she would never be happy again without. It was his fearlessness toward life without her that finally forced her into action.
“This has got to end,” He told her. “I know it’s not easy, and you don’t want to hurt his feelings, but you have to do something. You’ve got a week. Either figure out what to say and end it, or we’re done. I’m not going to waste my time with a girl who can’t decide what she wants.” She always felt an urge to address him as “sir” when he talked to her like that. She never said it, but the word always came into her mind. Part of her hated that he talked to her like that, but she knew he was right and knew she had to hear it if anything was going to happen.
So, she went to Eric, the man she had betrayed, and she told him about the other man. It wasn’t easy for her, but she knew she had to do it. She came to his apartment as she so often did, which felt like a betrayal because she had done it so often when things were good between them. On the way over she tried to prepare herself for his reaction. She ran through her apology over and over. She got herself ready for all the tings she would have to say, and all the questions she would have to answer from him. To her relief he had made an easy dinner, spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce. They ate dinner and made small talk as they had so many times before, but soon enough the time came when things couldn’t be like they had been all the times before. She was helping him wash the dishes, her hands plunged into the hot, soapy water when she confessed to him. “I need--” she stopped and cleared her throat then began again in English. “I need to tell you something.” Her eyes were attracted to the floor. She was suddenly interested in the nuances of his shoes. But, she made herself look at him because she could feel him looking at her. It nearly broke her spirits to look him in the eyes because he looked at her so ready to hear what she had to say, totally oblivious to the pain she was going to bring him. She looked into his eyes and took a deep breath to prepare herself. “I’ve been seeing someone else. I’m sorry, I can’t really say how it happened--” but he cut her off before she should go any further.
“Oh, I see. Well, you don’t need to stay and wash dishes, it’s ok.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No no, it’s ok,” he said to her. She hated to see him so obviously lying.
“It’s just that he. . .”she started, trying to give the answers to the questions she thought he would ask, but didn’t.
“No, don’t worry about it. These things happen all the time.” She wanted him to be angry, to ask questions, but he didn’t and that hurt her more than his anger could have. “Well, I can finish the dishes, they’re almost done anyway. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again sometime,” he said to her without a hint of sarcasm. He finished drying the tea cup he had in his hands and put it away, then started on the plate, not even giving her the dignity of trying to rush her out of the door.
She set a plate on the drying rack. “Well,” she said for lack of anything else to say, then dried her hands and started to walk toward the door. He walked her to the door.
“Have a good night.”
“Yeah . . . You too.” She said and walked to her car. He walked back to the kitchen, dunked his hands into the water and began to weep. He didn’t try to stop himself as his tears dropped into the dishwater.