As regular visitors will know, we sometimes receive submissions that don’t fit into the usual scheme of things but we want to publish because of the quality of the writing, or the message, or sometimes something special about the author. This is one of those. We thought this deserved a moment in the sun:
Him Her Them Us by Victor Kreuiter
He came to the conclusion, reluctantly, that it was unlikely to make a difference. Disappointed in the outcome, he grew morose. When friends and coworkers asked about it, he shook them off, saying it didn’t matter. Months trudge by, he’s more unhappy that he thought he’d be, and when his supervisor brings it up in a meeting – he sees that as an underhanded ploy to make him look like a failure in front of the team – he controls himself, patiently reveals the data collected, explains his interpretations and his misgivings about those interpretations and declares the study complete. At that, the supervisor abruptly ends the meeting. Eyes roll, mouths yawns, shoulders shrugs … relief for everyone but him. His confidence plummets. He grows bitter; can’t help it. He’s offered a promotion and he assumes the offer is to placate him, to silence him, and he turns it down before turning in his resignation. This, as winter arrives.
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She wasn’t the victim she wished she was, and she wished she wasn’t aware of her wish to be a victim. It wasn’t the desired victimhood, it was the awareness that bothered her. It was counterproductive to the self-image she’d built. She’d finally gone on a date after the divorce. She hadn’t wanted to go and had only gone because friends said it would be good for her. Whoever he was – she had to struggle to even look at the guy – he wasn’t much. When he said “You’re not interested at all, are you?” she was toying with her food in a restaurant where their waiter had extoled the type of food she was unlikely to order. “I’m sorry,” she told her date, and that’s when she gave him a good long look and that’s when she realized he was as pissed off at her as anybody had ever been, and that provided – why, she wasn’t sure, although she was sure she should feel some shame – that provided her a hint of glee.
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The two of them? Whose idea was that? No one would ever suggest he was her type. He came off as morose and more than a bit acerbic. She’d put up with someone like that? Unlikely. She was the type who would – without hesitation – ditch friends when ditching friends worked in her interests. (That’s not as terrible as it sounds. Her friends would do the same.) Her marriage? In her mind, that relationship had simply gone out of fashion. Expired. Lapsed. Deactivated. This guy? Not her problem. That sad encounter … she didn’t think of as uncomfortable. If she felt anything, it was irritation with herself for wasting time.
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The rest of us? The entire planet? Every living soul? Over eight billion human beings? Completely, totally, fabulously unaware. Unconcerned. Daily lives, the challenges of living … summerfallwinterspring … whatever. How would anyone hear about the two of them? Why would anyone care to? If not for this attempt – the three struggling paragraphs above – what happened wouldn’t matter a whit, to anyone, ever. Except him and her. Maybe.
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