fiction – stories – life

There's this thing I've been missing on my own LJ: these little stories that crop up every once in a while, tiny fragments of what life can be, if only you look at it from the right (the wrong?) side. Tilt your head a bit, take off your glasses, so your vision gets blurry and everything seems to make this kind of sense that's different. (Wasn't it Xander's line that went "This makes the kind of sense that doesn't"?) Everything can be shiny and beautiful, if only you look at it the right way, if only you write about it with the proper words. It all looks so dull at the moment. I used to blur the line between fact and fiction. Now I'm all straightforwardness. I should take off those glasses more often.

Dear sweet_lil_rach,

Can you please remove that fugly picture of a kitten in a swimsuit from your LJ? It's been sitting on the top of my friendspage since this morning and it's extremely disturbing for any cat loving person, including me.

Thank you very much.

Yours truly,
Frances

Word Collector

"I collect words," she says: "I Look for the rare ones, the ones with a special meaning or a beautiful sound, only uttered very occasionally."
"Like a butterfly collector," he adds helpfully.
"No," she answers, "that'll never work. The butterflies are dead, pinned to a velvet cushion, stashed away for no-one to look at or touch. Their wings would crumble to dust."
"It's only a metaphor."
"But it can never work. Metaphors never work."
He is silent. A frown on his face indicates he's thinking, pondering her last reply, till he stops dead in his tracks: "You use a metaphor." She turns around and looks at him standing there in the middle of the road. "You use a metaphor. When you say you collect words it cannot be more than a metaphor."
"It is?" She thinks it through when they walk on: "But I work with the words. I make new things with them. I let them become what they weren't before. That's not really collecting, is it?"
"I don't know," he answers: "It's probably Aristotle or the parable of the talents: let something be of use."
"When you're fascinated with sounds there isn't much use to the words."
"Then you must be a poet."
She looks at him: "I am not." She sounds touchy.
Now it is he who turns around to look her in the face: "Then what are you, little word collecting girl?"