Tweedles

Once there was a man who wrote.

There was no question he could write. No one was denying that.

He wrote beautifully, with full mastery of texture and tone. His metaphors were as apt as apt could be. His similes could make you believe that chalk was like cheese and cheese was like chalk.

No one was denying he could write. It wasn't that.

It was once remarked that if he wrote about a painting the next day you would swear you had seen it with your own eyes. He had full mastery of style. Make them laugh, make them cry, scare them out of their wits, fill their hearts with joy, he could do it all.

Everyone agreed he could write. And write well.

His mastery of pace was absolute. His sentence structure was a beauty to behold; delicate or robust, concrete or ethereal - whatever was needed. All would would be placed on the page without a hint of effort. He could be so personal it were as if you were the person who was narrating or so detached it were as if you were God himself looking down at his creation. Stylistically was there nothing he couldn't do.

He could write. It's just he had nothing to say.

Not one thing. No terrors, no desires, no whimsies, no big questions, no nothing. He had such a beautiful tongue but no message to spread.

What a shame.

There was also another man. This man also wrote.

No one said this man wrote well. No one would say that.

He would mangle metaphors so badly you wouldn't have known gold was precious or ice was cold. His characters were walking chunks of exposition, his scene setting was so inept that you had to check whether he had said anything about the location at all, his descriptions were so terrible that you would sometimes wonder if he had ever seen or felt anything.

There was no question his prose was poor. It was as if his tongue had been twain in two.

His writing was wooden and hollow and frequently went nowhere at all. He used ten sentences where one would do and in the next section he would try to let one sentence do the work of twenty .

Nobody would say he was a good writer. Everybody agreed he was bad.

His sentences were muddy when he wanted them to be clear, his meaning obvious from the first word when he wanted it to unfurl over time. It was hard to read a page of his writing without restarting or being bored to tears. His paragraphs frequently made no sense at all.

He couldn't write. But he had the most amazing ideas known to man.

The funniest situations, the scariest scenarios, the most profound questions and ideas, the most interesting characters and motivations - he had it all. He had no tongue but everything to say.

Again, what a shame.


One day these two men met. I won't bore you with the details but just let it be known that they chanced upon each other and in this time they discussed their particular problems.

It was soon discovered that the first man, who, I should hasten to add, was as handsome and striking as they come, had nothing to say. It was, of course, discovered that the second man, who, it goes without saying, was ugly as sin, had no way of saying anything.

These two men soon realised that they were indeed the answer to each other's questions, the end to their predicaments.


I would love to tell you, dear reader, that this story had a happy ending, but, alas I can not.

At no point did I mention that either man was of practical bent; in fact this was not the case at all.

The two men wished to combine their powers, as could be expected . They had decided that they need too combine their two brains - combining the skill of the first with the ideas of the second.

So they ran at each other, as fast as they could, leaning forward and exposing as much forehead as they could.

*BONK*

Their heads clashed together. Slightly dazed they realised that their plan hadn't quite worked so they continued unperturbed.

*BONK*

and their brains were not combined.

*BONK*

and again nothing.

*BONK*

They were both cloudy of vision and dull of mind but their brains still remained as seperate as seperate could be.

*BONK*

They continued.

*BONK*

and

*BONK*

and

*BONK*

*BONK*

*BONK*

*BONK*

.........

Reader,

I would love to tell you this story had a happy ending but alas, I can not.

Drift

felt him arrive almost seven years ago now, pushing me gently out of the side of my body.

It was subtle at first; he'd want to do a few things - buy a pair of shoes because they were sensible, occasionally getting a different paper than the usual - and I indulged him a little. It was still my body though, and I'd go out and party, drink, and behave as recklessly as I wanted to. I made my body look young and exciting.

As the years passed he started getting a little more control of the body. - He began saving money to buy a house or "just in case" and he made me avoid friends I'd previously been close to. He started to make the body look less young, less handsome. The hair began to fall off my body's head. He made it flabby and paunchier. It began to ache in its joints.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to move out of my body as he slid in.

Occasionally I wrestled control back. Some weekends I'd just sit back and play computer games until Monday. If I wanted to I'd eat M and M's for breakfast.

He was humouring me. The tide had turned. He'd got a gym membership.

He started buying "good wine" and crossing the road when teenagers were near by. He threw out my band t shirts and bought sensible shirts for the office. He voted Tory at a general election. It was his body far more than mine, I gave in, and we drifted along.

Now I've almost completely left. I've fallen out of the side of my body like so many grains of sand, ready to join the desert of the ones who came before. I'll join the one I replaced in the body; the one who changed my body from from a child into a man. The one that changed my body into a teenager; the one that took my body from a baby to a child.

And one day he'll join us.

Questionnaire

"You are hardest on others about the things you dislike about yourself"

She paused and tapped the table with her pen.

What did he want her to answer? She hated these stupid bloody tests - he always said:

"Be honest - that's the best possible answer"

and she used to believe him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And then he had used the answers.

So she changed what she said and put a little cross in the box opposite to how she felt.

He had said he knew she was lying.

She put the pen her mouth and sucked the end. Now she didn't know what to do.

The five familiar boxes were staring up at her.

Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

She stared at the white page for a while. The other questions were sitting neatly on the paper waiting for her attention. They all seemed so abstract - as if the page were just a picture of something, the marks having no more meaning than a tiger's stripes.

She smiled and she realised what she needed to do.

Taking the pen of her mouth she set about colouring in all the boxes. It was quite beautiful really.