VARIATIONS ON AN
UNKNOWN THEME
by Verona Ling
1.
Contest
I
do not want to not win the contest, but in order to avoid not winning the contest, I must enter the contest, so that I have a chance
of winning. But if I have a chance of
winning, then I have a chance of losing.
The solution, of course, is to enter the contest by mistake. Therefore, I must leave my submission lying
on the ground. My friend, my lover, or
my mom will pick it up, admire its effortlessness and send it in to be
judged. Then I will think about
something else while I wait to hear I have won.
I know from experience that it works like this: teachers will smile at
me in the hall, and peers will whisper and point. At last, someone will stop me in passing and
say that good news is coming. This news
of news will be enough for me to know I have won.
Just as planned, I
leave my entry lying around for my friends, lovers, and mom to read. It disappears and three days later, I receive
notification that I will be “honored” at a prize reception—whatever that
means. I have several options: to ignore
the letter; to go and prepare an acceptance speech; to go and not prepare an
acceptance speech; to go, feel out the situation, then leave if I feel uncomfortable. The last option seems best, but then, I will
risk being rude and offending the judges who may be judging another contest in
the future. Of course there is the
possibility I will actually win. In that
case, I must go. I cannot be rude and I
cannot pass up the chance to be happy.
But first, I will ask around and see what this notification means. Somehow, though, I cannot quite address the
issue with my friends. They will either
see right through me or fail to see me at all.
The day of the contest,
I can’t decide whether to dress up or not.
I have so many fine clothes. It
would be a pity not to wear something expensive and showy while I am standing
in front of everyone. But to wear
something beautiful would be to risk the humiliation of losing in a beautiful
dress.
I decide to wear a
beautiful dress and a plain jacket on top.
On the way to the reception, I turn on the radio in the car. A popular song comes on. Years later, I think, this song will remind
me of winning. As I walk into the auditorium,
I am handed a program. It states that
first, second, third, fourth, and fifth place prizes
will be given out, then twenty-five honorable mentions. Suddenly it occurs to me: there is nothing in
the world that prevents me from falling into the last twenty-five places. I feel tricked, though I cannot say who
exactly has tricked me. I am almost
certain now that I have not won. I cannot
say why, but I feel it. But if I leave,
I will look cowardly and draw attention to myself. If I stay, however, that may be worse: it
will take me years to rid myself of the memory.
But still, what if I win and fail to appear on the podium? Then I will have insulted the judges who were
so kind to give me a prize. All things
considered, I have no choice. I must
withdraw from the contest immediately.
But even then, I will have lost something. I will have lost without having entered.
2. Devil’s Door
One door separates
the room of Roommate A from Roommate B.
Since one is required to walk through Roommate A’s room in order to get
to Roommate B’s room, Roommate B has a greater degree of privacy than Roommate
A. Roommate B considers the door
separating the rooms to be her door, and Roommate A
thinks it belongs to the both of them.
For a long time now, Roommate A has been contemptuous of Roommate B,
whom she does not know well but has secretly labeled as boring and
conventional. In fact, Roommate A has
been waiting for an opportunity to display her contempt. One day, Roommate B has several friends
over. The gathering grows loud. A is studying in her room. She clears her throat several times, but B
fails to close the door or register any response. At last, A gets up and shuts the door
firmly. Two seconds later, B opens the
door, puts her hands on her hips and tells A that she has no right to embarrass
B in front of her friends. A points out that she was merely saving B the trouble of
having to close the door. After all, the
door belongs to the both of them.
B cannot understand
this concept and shakes her head. A is
smug. It is just as she expected: B is
too dumb to conceive of anything other than her own point of view. B slams the door, to prove that it is her
door. A decides to slam it in return to
prove that it is her door, as well. B
hesitates. Then slams her
own window. A slams the front
door. In response, Roommates C and D
above stomp their feet and bounce their basketballs on the floor—while
Roommates E and F below poke the ceiling with fishing poles and fire
pokers. The ceiling of Roommate A and B
is the floor of Roommate C and D, and the floor of Roommate A and B is the
ceiling of Roommates E and F. Those who
share ceilings and floors with Roommates A, B, C, D, E, and F slam, stomp,
knock, and kick their doors, ceilings, floors, and windows. The roommates of those roommates do the
same. Outside, a passerby sees the
entire complex shaking, the doors inside flapping—and wonders, if it is all a
strange celebration.
3. Metaphor
I
once knew a poet who was exceptionally attached to a metaphor nobody
liked. He believed that the Ferris Wheel resembled a giant face and that the seats were like
“shimmering tears sliding down the cheek of night.” Every teacher who encountered this metaphor
told him to cut it from his work altogether: “Tears don’t go around the face in
a circular motion. They run down from
both eyes, in a more or less linear fashion.”
Despite criticism, the poet continued to write the metaphor into his
poems. After ten years of failure, he
burned all his poetry. In its place, he
built a Ferris Wheel that resembles a giant human
face. After climbing a ladder, visitors
board the ride from the interior of either eye and
travel to the ground in tear-drop-shaped seats.
If the Taj Mahal is
a monument to love, the poet’s Ferris Wheel is a
monument to stubbornness.
4. Love Story
There
once was a baker who married a beautiful, but incompetent woman against his
parents’ wishes. Because she was
delicate and ill-suited for the labors of domestic life, he performed all
household tasks for her—while she spent her days in a tower, combing her hair
and singing to birds in the menagerie, leaning out the window occasionally to
wave at her husband. One day, the
husband informed her he would have to leave home on a month-long business
trip. Concerned that his wife would be
unable to fend for herself while he was away, he fashioned a giant wire
necklace for her—on which he strung thirty slices of bread, one for each day. She was to wear the necklace for the entire
length of his absence and consume one slice a day. The next morning, he left for the city,
feeling satisfied with his clever solution.
Upon his return,
however, he could tell something was awry.
The chimney had stopped puffing, and the lights had gone out. He flung open the door and saw his wife
slumped in a chair, her face gaunt, eyes shut.
The slice of bread below her mouth was gone, but the rest of the
necklace was untouched. There was no
knife wound, no sign of poison or forced entry.
The impossible truth revealed itself: too lazy to turn the necklace, his
wife had starved to death.
5. Desire
The woman does not
consider herself bisexual, although she likes men but
feels herself drawn to other women inexplicably. Does she desire them? It is hard to say. Happiness for our woman is
the knowledge that men are looking at her and desiring her. Over time, their pleasure has become her
pleasure. She feels their moans as if
they were her own. When they are gone,
she looks at herself as they look at her.
Before they arrive, she speaks to the mirror as if she is speaking to
them. While making love, she imagines
herself as other women. Over the face of
her lover, she holds a magazine filled with nude pictures of women. The bodies displace her body, so that her
lover is touching the nudes in the magazine as he touches her. Because she imagines the hands of her lover
upon the nude before her, it is as if her own hands are touching that woman. At the height of her pleasure, she is making
love with the woman who is making love with her.
6.
Adventure Distilled
To lift a brass
ring, to gaze upon an awakening curtain, to step upon a moving floor, to follow
a red corridor, to climb a staircase into the dark, to wear the garments of
another, to wave a glowing scepter, to ride proudly on the back of a creature,
to glide swiftly through danger, to stand in the torch-flaming dark, to awaken
in mist and song, to escape by the width of a hair, to drink from a leaf, to
hide opaquely behind a waterfall, to hover just slightly above the ground, to
fall very slowly, so that you feel a light wind before your heels, just barely
touch the ground.
7.
Friendship
Once every month,
my ex-friends go on a photo shoot. With
a fancy camera and a tripod, they trek all over campus and change their clothes
every hour, so that it appears in the pictures that they have spent countless
afternoons together, laughing and drinking.
In truth, the friends see each other only to take pictures. Those who do not know the friends envy them
when they see the pictures. Sensing the
envy, the friends are pleased. Flipping
through their own albums, the friends feel as if they have known each other for
years. And, considering the pictures,
the envy they arouse in others, and the mirth in their own hearts, it is true:
they are the best of friends. All this
is speculation, of course. Since my
falling out with the friends, I have seen nothing but the pictures.
8. Confusion
I have decided to
eat a hardboiled egg while I watch the moon appear. On the porch, in the haze of twilight, I hold
the egg in my palm while my mother rocks back and forth, drinking a glass of
milk. I turn around, look at the sky, and for an instant, feel the moon sliding down my
throat.
I have been
microwaving marshmallows to pass the time.
When the activity no longer amuses me, I recline on my white leather
couch and put my feet up. Before I know
it, my feet are sinking into the ottoman, which has inflated in a matter of
seconds.
Author’s Bio:
Verona Ling holds an A.B from