Write365

The first time I saw him, he was digging ketchup out of a bottle with a knife. The only reason I noticed him was because the girl he was with was beautiful. Long, blonde hair and eyes likes moons-wide and bright. I was with my husband and we were one of those couples that look miserable when we went out. The couple past its prime that the first daters hope they never become. I was wiggling my straw around the ice in my glass, trying to get the last remaining drops of watered down diet coke out-not because I was thirsty, but because I had nothing else to do. I certainly didn’t want to look across the table.

The ketchup guy was doing it all wrong. I started to get agitated watching him. Hopefully his girlfriend would help him out. She was staring blindly out the window, apparently deep in thought, as he tried to get the too-thick knife into the bottle as his greasy hamburger lay below him, naked and dry. I liked to mind my own business but soon I was going to have to intervene. Clink, clink, clink, sigh. He was getting frustrated, and so was I. I stood up and walked over to his table. He was ready to accept my help, looking up at me in expectation. I grabbed the bottle and hit it smack dab on the label, 2/3 of the way down. A gob of ketchup hit his plate and I handed the bottle to him. “Hit it here and aim,” I said. He looked flustered and relieved at the same time. He gave me a half smile and I walked away. My husband didn’t comment.

6 months later, I was at work needing help setting up an email account for a promotion we were working on. We were holding a photography contest for senior citizens and I needed a box set up where they could email their entries-photos of the good old days. I felt a presence behind me and turned around (isn’t it funny how you just know when someone is hovering). It was him, blushing first and then stuttering. Where did this guy come from? Did he work here? “You need help with an email box?” Oh yes, the new help desk guy. He helped me and never mentioned the ketchup.

Months went by and we didn’t talk. I was divorced by now and dating a man much older than me, but nice and attractive. Ketcup guy would give me looks when we passed on the sidewalk-coming and going from smoking cigarettes, or whatever he was doing out there. He was young. I happened by his cubicle one day and saw a photograph of two young children, blonde.

One day I finally asked him “How’s your pretty, blonde girlfriend?” He blushed and walked away, not answering me. I gave up on him. I only have enough stamina to give them one chance and that was it. Later that afternoon, I got an email “You’re the ketchup girl!” and I emailed back “and your’e the ketchup guy.” I was flattered he called me a”girl” even though I was clearly far from being a girl. He asked me out and I said no. I’m smart enough to never follow a gorgeous blonde, especially one who has given birth to his children.

Another journey has begun. We’d been waylaid in the big silver pit for over a day, longer than on the other trips. We all wondered what was going on. One of the giant creatures had picked me out of my holding cell and tried to smother me in a vat of gooey, sweet, yellow pus. After being submerged for several sections, it would pretend to eat me, threatening me by putting my head in it’s mouth and closing. Of course, this happened every week or so. For some, it happened more often, every few days. And for some, they were tortured by getting dipped in scalding hot liquids. Sometimes they were even left in there for minutes at a time. The sliver pit was sometimes a peaceful place, other times we were forced to bake in the sun and get doused with water - sometimes hot, sometimes painfully cold. Finally, we were put into the tranpsortaiton vehicle. This too was a familiar place. The little cells where we were all placed - not just spoons like me, but forks, knives, and even the larger creatures known as plates, pots, and glasses. They were worse off than us - more exposed. We at least had the slight protection of the holding cages.

The door was shut and we started moving. I could feel the vehicle move back and forth with force. Soap burned my face and the hot water bursted all around me. For some reason, we were always “cleaned” on route. I dont’ know where we were taken or why because the door was never opened. But it was always a round trip journey, taking us back to the prison we knew. After what seemed like days, the door was opened again. We all breathed a sigh of relief. I felt myself being picked up by the giant creature between two appendages slightly smaller than my whole body. it threw me back into my cell, and I fortuitously landed right on martha. We cuddled together, her concave head nestling against the back of mine. I felt comforted, happy to be back in the cell - even if just for a little while.

Write about your beliefs about love, following some of the questions raised above (Is love a capricious emotion, subject to the winds of fortune? Or are people capable of staying-not out of fear or comfort or inertia but out of a selfless concern for someone to whom they feel devoted?). Is it a powerful emotion? What is the nature of love? How long can it last? Does it inevitably fade? Begin an essay titled “on love” or write a poem about love. Or, if you prefer, write a scene that dramatizes your beliefs about the nature of love.

An emotion for the masses
the poor excel at it
A salve to take away the pain
of aching muscles and
worried minds.
Crisis, depression, loneliness
bring people together like
the opposite ends of a magnet.

Rich people don’t get it
and the poor know
it’s the one thing that makes them superior.
The one thing they have
that can’t be bought, and can’t be sold.

But in the end, even the poor
can’t hold on to it.
It can’t be sustained
through constant upheaval.
Love blooms in sorrow
but gets worn down
like a pair of overused shoes.

When the oil bill comes and can’t be paid
who wants to deal with that?
Time to move on
and find someone new.
Someone with different problems
to uncover and different
body parts to fall in love with.