Writer's Notebook

I've just come across the fiction friday blog meme. And wanted to try it out. But this week's prompt buids a little on last week's exercise. So below is my offering for last week's challenge in which we were asked to write a character sketch using odd names. The name I picked is Surreal.

Dear Unknown,

You ask who I am, what makes me tick. Well, here goes, but remember you asked for it. Let’s begin with the easy part – what I look like. Well, I am like most other people. Indeed! I have a head, an upper and lower body, arms, legs, feet, fingers, toes, eyes, ears, exactly like anyone else. The only difference is that mine aren’t necessarily in the same place that other people have them. Maybe, you should try and imagine me as a kaleidoscope. As you turn round me, I change. New aspects appear, others change their shape; limbs merge into others before re-emerging as something different. Confused? Don’t worry, everyone is. It doesn’t bother me in the least. And then there’s the colours. I bet you’re imagining all sorts of colours. A sort of feast of punkers all rolled into one body. Well, it’s not quite like that. Two colours suffice for me. One is the opposite of white and the other, the opposite of black. Maybe, you’ve never thought of this, but opposites attract, that’s why I much prefer them to drab, plain colours.

So, now we’ve got the easy part done, let’s go on to my personality. Psychologists have a habit of using many words where one will suffice. I’ll just give you the one: ME. Of course, which me I happen to be at any one time, that’s for you to discover. There’s the flashy me – the one that likes fast cars, works as an environmental officer, adores spraying insecticide around the house and splashes tomato ketchup on my TV whenever I watch a war film to increase the excitement and reality. Then there’s the quiet me. But I’m afraid you wouldn’t hear it if I told you so I’ll spare you the bother of trying. Because deep down, there’s the economical me. The economical me is quite famous actually. She got put in jail for defaulting on her debts some years ago and while out of prison saved the state enormous sums it would otherwise have had to have paid for her upkeep. Unfortunately, after years on the run, she became the athletic me, a sort of Forrest Gump of the sane. That was the me which won several gold medals; so many that when I melted down all the gold I managed to pay off all the debts of the economical me and never went to prison. So I never had to run and never became the athletic me. So I’m afraid to say, I still have all those debts. Still, if we really do hit it off together, you can take care of that.

Interested? I hope not. Because as I said, opposites attract. So it’s only if you find me utterly revolting that we have any chance of making it through like together. And I do hope so not perhaps, on tenterhooks, revoltingly, thinking, even if it’s not too late even for me.