Attraction- David's Take

The Challenge:  Write a character to whom you would be attracted.

 

 

 

Alicia: An Admission of Bad Taste

By David Franklin

 

Working at a prestigious research library was a full-time commitment, but that didn’t stop Alicia Sommers from volunteering at her local Humane Society, mentoring gifted children with emotional disorders, or studying ballet and Wu Shu kung fu in her spare time.

 

“How do you find the time for it all, Alicia?” asked her unnamed woman friend over coffee one day. “Don’t you ever just want to stay in bed all day and watch Shark Week?”

 

“Oh, I would actually rather read than watch TV,” replied Alicia, adjusting her glasses. “But in principle it’s the same thing. Like last night, I stayed up until three reading Inferno in its original Tuskan. Dante’s contemporary political commentary and rich metaphor are like the warp and weft of the Jacquard tapestry that hangs over my writing desk. I stayed up two hours past my bedtime! What will they think of me, yawning during tomorrow’s NSA protest?” She chuckled and sipped her chai latte.

 

Suddenly, a man representative of all of his gender sprinted to the pair of women and knelt before Alicia. He beat a clenched fist over his heart in salute.

 

“Excuse me, ma’am. I just wanted to tell you that I originally approached you with the intention of trying to get your phone number, on account of you’re so hawt. But then I overheard the last part of what you were saying, and your obvious sophistication has challenged everything I know and believe about both gender relationships and our society’s conflation of physical attractiveness with personal value! I’m going to go home now and reconsider everything that my emotionally repressed father taught me about what it means to be a ‘real man.’ So thank you for that!”

 

“Aww, that’s so lovely of you to say,” crooned Alicia. “You have a nice day now, sir!”

 

“Oh, I certainly will! You ladies have a nice one too.”  The man turned to leave, hesitated, and then turned back. “You know what? I think I’m going to buy a dress.” With a wink, he sashayed away.

 

“What a wonderful human being that person was,” remarked Alicia.

 

“I want to hate you,” said the lesser woman of the pair. “When you walk down the street, all the men and several women gaze after your full, voluptuous-yet-toned body that seems to call out to them even beneath your tasteful and smart attire, and that makes me automatically feel bad about myself by comparison, causing me to project my insecurity upon you and killing any potential friendship we could have… or it would, if you weren’t so gracious and genuinely interested in the thoughts and feelings of other people, regardless of social status. It’s probably because of that that you have so many close personal friends of both genders and all walks of life!”

 

“Well, human beings do fascinate me,” replied Alicia. “We’re capable of so much, yet in the end each of us is slowly dying. There’s no time to waste. I’d like to do what I can to make as many of our short lives as rich and fulfilling as possible, and that’s why I donate generously to responsible charities.”

 

Her brow furrowed as she sighed heavily. “But it’s still not enough to overcome my deep-seated existential guilt. I often don’t think I deserve to live this gob-smackingly awesome life while most of the world suffers from poverty. What right do I have to pursue my dreams and eventually find a partner who can complement my innate curiosity, strong will, and generous spirit, as well sate my voracious and occasionally non-traditional sexual appetite, when so many children are born just to starve to death?” she asked, brushing aside a lock of her vibrant red hair that had fallen over one of her piercing emerald eyes, which were brimming with the milk of human kindness.

 

            Alicia’s friend sighed with strictly Platonic admiration. “You’re so wonderful that I don’t even mind being a prop for your character development in this facile story!”

 

            “What did you say.” Alicia’s gaze was swift and hard.

 

            “N—nothing! I said, ‘You’re so wonderful,’ that’s all! I swear!”

 

            “You fool!” shouted Alicia, her face distorting with panicked rage. “Your thoughtless meta-narrative self-awareness has doomed us all!”

 

            Indeed, even as they spoke, the fourth wall began to unravel. The fictional world is much denser than reality, and the resulting pressure differential between the two realms created a time-space vortex that crushed Alicia, her friend, and the rest of their story into a single point of infinite fictional mass. Needless to say, everybody died.

 

THE END