Creative Writing Practice

[Oliver]

So, Dlinka, do you think men need women more than women need men?

Bink, it depends on what needs you're speaking of.

B: Well, who would be more likely to die of a broken heart?

D: Men, of course! Women just become old Miss Havishams, just hardened, and old, very old and bitter, just hardened, very old and bitter and witch-like. And they wear strong perfume, lots & lots of strong perfume, and go and spit on the grave of the male who done them wrong... And all this is on a good day!

B: Er, are you looking forward to spitting on mine?

D: Sweetie, it all depends on you, yuck yuck!

B: OK, men are weaker because they need women more, well, in a conjugal way, then?

D: It's rather an enigma. A person can live a life without a conjugal connection and some manage to die happily. Not so the vast majority of males.. Their 'want' is felt as a need and if it is destined somehow to be unfulfilled, it can become sort of a 'slow suicide'.

B: You don't hear me disagreeing, Dlinka. Now, what about survival? Who needs who more?

D: It is extremely difficult to say this and I'm sure it is for many women, but, since we are smart, we realize that in our role to compete with men for jobs, we've still only just begun. We are now in important news positions, and run certain companies and may soon have a female commander-in-chief and all those sorts of things. Still, the deepest realms of electronics, science, architecture, engineering and space technology and so forth is still very much a man's world. Our female brains are capable, but it'll take some time to catch up, so to speak, with the predominance of the men and their achievements, both good and bad, since history has been recorded.

B: And what do you see as women's final triumph?

D: It would be the same comment that I heard on an old Virginia Graham ladies talk show years ago: She said they'd just have men around for kicks.

B: Say, I think I saw that too. She said when they could fertilize their eggs with "homemade" male-type squigglers, men would be unneeded, the world would be far more peaceful not having to put up with them, and that there'd be no wars, (ha)....

D: AND even if women's  eggs could be artificially produced and grown outside the woman's body--which they practically do now--we'll still be the last standing since the poor male dears would need us all the more since there would be no worry about an unwanted pregnancy.

B: Bu,,,,but what about the women who would still want to give birth?

D: HA! None would, believe me!

B: Dlinka, you've never given birth, how do you know?

D: OK, I suppose it could be arranged if some deranged female actually thought she wanted to be pregnant and do it the old way, however using a turkey baster..

B: What a world that would be. Out in the country, on a calm, wonderful moonlit night, under a tree on a blanket----- with a turkey baster.....Glad I won't be around to hear of such things.

D: That's what I love about you, Binky.

B: What's that?

D: You're a hopeless romantic, last of a dying breed.

B: Goodnight, my Miss Havisham!

D: Watch it, buster!     

[Oliver]

Binky: Does the red tie need lambasting, Dlinka?

Dlinka: Not tonight. It's the 3rd month anniversary of corn exercises.

B: Why is it always the anniversary of something?

D: It is the blend of genetics with luck.

B: What's luck, got ta do with it, got ta do with it, got ta do with it?

D: I perceived you initially. Without pretending to skate the slushy waters of canarvo, the trip could be delayed with awaiting foreclosure.

B: That doesn't take into account that Jeeves is very upset with the carnage at the towing agency on Spruce St. He is assembling an entire chuch steeple by himself.

D: So that's why the donkey wandered around, finally found, somebody who, could make him be true, could make him feel blue, jand even be glad, just to be sad, thinking of Gordova, of Asia Minor.

B: Well, I understand what you're not saying and totally dismiss the pretext under the pretense of preteen parties which participate in pattoned performances of puffy poshy puffs, porker.

D: Why are you so mean tonight? Do you have worms and sour kraut? I don't usually ask such questions, but why do the gas street lights look so bright tonight?

B: In my impeccable opinion it must conclude with the hair brush being dipped in honey and fed to the ants but only if the moon is in the 8th house, and jupitor aligns with FQV's old 75 ohm coax which the mice have mostly eaten.

D: What sort of cheese heads do you deal with?   

B: Ask that at 4:56 PM on Oct. 14, 2053 and you shall know. To know knot, is sad.

D: To have read this is even sadder!

B: Oh, there are worse things to do. Shall I name them.

D: Say goodnite, Bink.

B: Goodnite, Bink. 

[Oliver]

And Binky's nightmare was so terrible, that he awakened in a cold sweat, with a racing heart! He dreampt that Dlinka was the mother of girl "21-tuplets", named Flinka, Glinka, Hlinka, Ilinka, Jlinka, Klinka, Llinka, Mlinka, Nlinka, Olinka, Plinka, Qlinka, Rlinka, Slinka, Tlinka, Ulinka, Vlinka, Wlinka, Xlinka, Ylinka and Zlinka!! And they ALL had Dlinka's personality!!

[Oliver]

Binky and Dlinka had met some years ago on a beautiful early day in May in the farmland countryside here in the Midwest. He came upon her during his usual solitary ride one Saturday morning. She was changing a flat on her bike. Unfortunately it was a rear flat, too.

It really was a shock for him to see any young woman, who looked to be a serious bicyclist, too, out just where they had converged, let alone a such a radiantly beautiful one. Her legs were drop-dead gorgeous; her chest an obvious bosom of great delight with a purposeful smidgen of cleavage showing; her face was indescribably angelic and the first sound of her voice was enchanting and he was instantly in love with it.

This impression happened in a matter of a few seconds. He couldn't simply pass by without saying anything, and yet female beauty had always stunned him. And he was not an extovert anyway and certainly the kind of fellow women didn't give a 2nd look at, let alone a 1st.

He found himself saying hello, that it was a beautiful day, that he'd be happy to assist with the tire change and if she wanted to go fool around that would be OK, too.

She didn't blink an eye, actually, she didn't appear to look up either. She said hello also, and that no thanks, she was not a weak, little, pretty thing with an empty mind.

So, he didn't even get to stop and was out of sight within a few minutes.

He wondered if he had been too forward sounding? He always did his deepest thinking while out there pedaling. Thinking of her was causing him not to pay the usual attention to where he was guiding his bike, though. About 1/2 hour after the encounter, he didn't see to avoid a huge metal chunk and managed a flat, the 1st ever even with the tire liners he had been using so successfully.

Binky was in a fix this time. It would involve more than patching a tube. The tire was torn, enough so that if he were able to ride at all, it would have to be with great caution. All in all, it looked like it was going to be a 15 mile walk back to town.

He was so lost in time in dealing with the matter that he didn't see her approaching from the west. This time she actually took the initiative by saying hello and asking what the matter was. An indescribable joy rushed to his heart as he awkwardly explained his predicament. She had been straddling her seat, and Binky's less innocent thoughts managed to stray to thinking how very very lucky that bicycle seat was....

Then, in all this little 30 sec. re-encounter, she merely giggled, mouthed the word "s-o-r-r-y" pushed off with her left foot and pedaled off, her hips ever so slightly pumping sensuously from side to side.

Pushing his touring machine, Binky arrived home at about 10 PM. The cat acted starving, and he fed her, changed the litter, checked his answering machine, which was empty as always, played "In Your Own Sweet Way" in B-flat at the piano, stayed up till 4:30 AM and dreamed of seeing her again. 

   

 

[Oliver]

A week later Binky pedaled the same route at the same time in hopes of seeing her yet again. He would've ordinarily pedaled a totally different route, but, well, you know how self-deluded romance is.

And they did cross paths. As he approached her, she engaged some tasers she had concealed in the carrier over her rear wheel. While he lay stunned in the middle of the dusty road, there was a faint smile on his lips at having seen her from the rear in moving detail for about 9 seconds or so.

[Oliver]

Binky: Dlinka, please, I've just now wondered about this after 6 decades! Do you think there have ever been marriages or life-time relationships between lovers where one person never was 'in love'? And, what does it mean to be 'in love'?

Dlinka: Are you serious?

B: Er, yes.

D: Do you think every woman who married a man was in love 100 years ago? Maybe even 50 years ago?

B: You're asking me? I asked you first.

D: Well, don't believe every woman was like Doris Day in the movies. A lot of them felt they had no plethora of options after some basic education.

B: You seem to be saying that they felt compelled to marry for lack of any other alternative? Does that mean they hated it?

D: No, they all didn't hate it. What may be overlooked too, in your dilatory musing, is that some women would enjoy feeling loved and needed even if they weren't madly 'in love' with their partner. As for the fellows, why, they really can't help their needs. Some of them probably didn't care a lot for the person under their wife's skin either.

B: Then what about the 'in love' part. When a woman says she still loves him, but she's not 'in love' anymore, what does she mean?

D: Bink, I'm very tired. It would be too difficult to try to have you understand. Tomorrow I'll find some reference material for you to study about what being 'in love' from a woman's viewpoint means or may mean. It is a variable feeling for us too.

Anyway, after you study the material, and you had better take copious notes, I want a 20 page essay on your newly gained perspectives, typed, double-spaced, in acceptable grammatical form with proper credits given to quotes and resources.  I shall grade you harshly as you know. It is an inborn trait to which I am bound. No mothering instinct in me, nosiree! You can't come sniveling to me and expect some sweet, reassuring motherly fondling. The thought makes me puke,,yuck!

B: Gee, Dlink, you're so cute when ya talk to me that way. I'm so in love with you!

D: (under her breath) 'Yeah, Bink, I hear you. I'm so in love with me, too.'

[Oliver]

Binky: Oh, how I miss what we had......

Dlinka: Are you directing that to me?

B: No, to the little spider up in that corner....Yes! I was saying that to you, Dlinka.

D: What did we have?

B: It was so long ago, but I know we had something. ............................................ Oh, what delightful talks on the phone late at night, well before the days we even met, or even knew we would ever meet. I loved the sound of your voice. I really think that if I could be lost in one moment in time, it would be listening to you, so many miles apart while we both were watching the night sky.

D: Hmm. You sound a little too easy to please, Bink.

B: That's funny, Dlink. I feel I was too greedy in my mind. Well before I even heard your voice, I was spell-bound by your notes to me. Oh, yes, I got rid of them as you wanted, but, I couldn't part with one of them. It's just that I've never had anyone ever say those complimentary words to me. As I think back now, it all seems unbelievable, like it never happened...Tell me Dlinka, did it happen? Were you ever in love with me?

D:.................................................................Binky, it was real in sort of an unreal way, for a little while, but, the more sensible part of me realized there were little-by-little incompatible differences, ones you could never understand. Like for instance, frog' legs. I can't ever give my heart to anyone who doesn't love frog's legs. And the Beatles. My lover must love, truly, all Beatle music, regardless of their trashy interpersonal behavior. Conversely, I hate "jazz", yuck, pooey, geeminy gophers!

B: I'm sorry D. I never wanted to put you on the spot. I never wanted you to feel like you were leading me on.. It's my fault. I'dived so much of my life alone, never figuring anyone would ever find anything about me to like, let alone love, that when fate brought you to me as though by magic, I made the foolish mistake of letting my barriers down. It simply must have been some kind of pity you seemed to have for me, as though I were a very lost, starving kitten or something and you were helping me survive. I'm am truly sorry, Dlinka.

D: Oh, that's all right. We all do dumb things. I think you could find what you're looking for somewhere. Not sure just where. It would be a tough cookie to fill, though. You might check with the locked ward females patients somewhere. Or possibly with those with very short memories. As for the foreign bride deals, though, watch out for those. They'd only use you to get in the country, then end up hating you almost as much as I...

B: ALmost as much?? Wow, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.....To NOT be hated quite as much as you hate me, sounds almost like a dream now....How about "personals"?

D: Sorry. You wouldn't pass the rigid age, height, weight, income requirements and you'll never be a country/rock/whatever person they must have. And you don't do any of the normal things people do out in public. Actually, now that I think of it Bink, I think you should just forget it all. If I could blank out that poor part of your little mind, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

B: Thanks, Dlinka, but I'd rather suffer. At least I know I'm alive when I suffer.

D: Dear Binky, I envy you in a way. I'm not sure anymore just what makes me feel alive.

[Oliver]

Binky: Say, Dlink, did you and your family do neat things on Memorial Day when you were little?

Dlinka: Hmmm. Well, my folks were basically communists, so, no, nothing of note for them. I, however, used to go skinny dipping in the nearby Ploppingscorp Pond made from strip mining. They said it was 150 ft. deep. All I know is that it got real cold about 50 ft. down. Brrrrrr! Chatter-chatter!!

B: Sooo,,, no services at the cemeteries? No leaving flowers? No BBQing? No family get-togethers? No booze and/or wild drunken orgies?

D: Right you are, O Pizza Face.

B: By the way, you didn't swim alone did you?

D: I'm afraid so. I always begged my friend Iwanna Duet to come watch me, but she never would.

B: Gee, I would've watched you.

D: You would've had to take a number, O Skunk Breath.

B: So, would you like to have a cookout?

D: Say, how about a biggggg cookout, then you go skinny dipping while I watch you ?

B: Wow! Sounds like a true Memorial Day to me. Not sure I can swim much after these decades, though. It should be interesting, though, Dlinka, thanks!   

[Oliver]

Binky: I know you're leaving me, Dlinka. I can feel it. I wish I could say it'll be easy to get over you, but that would not be true.

Dlinka: Dear Binky. We've talked about this before. You heard that woman on TV selling a book or something say that parting forever means that at least one person is saying, however gently, that he or she would be much happier with the other out of his or her life. Don't look at it that way, please, Binky.

B: How else can I look at it? Unless you give me some idea of what's wrong and what's been wrong then how can it be anything other than you are devoid of any feeling of closeness to me? What all have I done wrong, Dlinka?

D: I don't want to hurt you. Yet I know you. You will have to feel hurt. I'm very sorry. I want to say that it wasn't really anything you did wrong. It was more of what you didn't do right.

B: Riddles, Dlinka? Now of all times when my heart feels so broken?

D: No, my gentle Binky, no riddles. I think it is more like an idea I heard once about a flower dying in the desert. It didn't get the water it absolutely needed to live, and so it withered and was dying. You were my water and you forgot me....

B: That strikes me as being not quite fair, Dlinka. It makes it seems that only you have needs, since the water, me, has no purpose except to nurture. Wouldn't it be more accurately that we were both flowers dying on the desert because both were dying of thirst?

D: It would have been simpler to have left it at my analogy, Binky. Who is to say that romantic love is always a balanced, 2-way affair? Did you love me Binky?

B: Yes! I still do!

D: Well, I did love you loving me, my sweet, for a long time, as a matter of fact. That's not the same, really, and to me seems to be one way romantic love can be different between men and women. Your's was more unconditional, partly because you were designed that way. Mine was more conditional.

B: Conditional? What conditions, please?

D: Little by little our relationship developed to the stark realization of asking myself 'what did I need you for?' I swear that is not meant to sound cruel, Binky.

B: Ah, what should be the greatest insult is not so, Dlinka? Are you totally sure?

D: Whether this makes it even worse, my Bink, I even was asking it matter-of-factly. If you could manage to hate me, I think it would be easier for you. Why would you or anyone pine or whatever for someone like me? I just essentially said that "we" had come to a point where I didn't even feel anything other than to feel it was all so pointless. Could not you bring yourself to hate me, just enough to get over me?

B: I really don't know if that's a relevant idea now, Dlinka. When I was quite a bit younger and gave me heart to a few others, I still had spirit within to reach out somehow yet another time. Now at what has to be the latter part of my life, my spirit is not exactly soaring, and the road seems all but impossible to travel. It seems so difficult. So, while I may be able to forget you and know there is nothing to ever rekindle, if I stay in this spot, all I will seem to have left is old memories, even while you're out in your latest-found happiness with someone you love, maybe even a love better than 'loving to be loved'....

D: If I could bring someone into your life, I would, Binky. I do care about you. I fear you will just waste away alone..As ironic as this will sound, if you still care for me, which you say you do, then you will find enough spirit to find someone new, Binky...Do it for me, Binky, please do it for me.   

[Oliver]

2 years later: Binky is simply 2 years older, alone, wasting away the time.

Binky's random thoughts before bed: Wonder how she made out? God.Those neighbors over there are noisy, outside talking loudly this late.. Have no clue where she went. Didn't really have much family left that I knew of but there was a lot she kept secret. Hmm. Need to go to the store tomorrow. Let's see, I need some pretzels, cans of corn, peas, maybe some brown beans....I have an idea, not really that strange for Dlinka I'd imagine, that she is pretty much alone. She'd talked about that with...Felt special to be included.. Lord, the car is making a new noise. How awful. All repairs cost so much now. Someday they'll have a meter of some kind that will register how fast people are killing ourselves with stress and anxiety...It'll all be there printed out in black and white: at this rate, you have 5.5 months to live. Gosh, is Dlinka even alive? Will never know. What a cruel lady, knowing I care about her even though it'll never be, treating me like I'm dead....The summers seem so long and empty now. I long for the short days of winter. Am I going to lose this weight? Never thought I'd put it back on. Damn myself. Didn't you always say millions of people would be happy to trade places with you? I really hope Dlinka is happy. She deserves to be. Maybe the right person did happen by. I wonder if she ever thinks of me? Well, am I ever going to write that imitation Hemingway novel? No. I know it won't happen. I feel so tired. Sleep is so appealing.... Drifting off to sleep is such a pleasure. And to think for all of those years she'd wake me up with noises, or thrashing around on her side. God. I have to take the dog out first.

 

[Oliver]

3 yrs. since Dlinka left:

Binky sat alone on the porch swing on one of those unpredictable spring evenings in late May where a thunderstorm could quickly usher itself in, soak the sidewalks, and trail off while the moon could be seen through the departing clouds. It always seemed such an alive time, a refreshing time, and once even an earnest and naughty time.

He thought of the porch swing sharing times from what seemed so long before. In fact he began to wonder if those times had ever really existed... And he wondered why it was so hard to simply forget her, even as so many of the memories were becoming so hazy.

Somewhere, some decades ago, he had read something about dealing with emotions that were seemingly impossible to overcome. At the time, a girl he loved deeply, Linka, another damaged-goods, loony-tunes basket case, was under such duress that he shared with her what he had read: She should go out in the country to as remote a spot as possible, stand there and exclaim "I am leaving my troubles here. They will not follow me from this spot. I am now FREE! FREE at last!! I am now AT PEACE."

Of course, apparently Linka had driven to Mexico, gotten sauced, had come home and od'ed, but those magazines always had ideas that sounded good, anyway.

Binky was considering getting any free magazines for such advice at the next library book sale in 5 months. Of course, he would get only the magazines that were tossed out after the sale. Yet, he didn't know if "Sky & Telescope", "Newsweek" or "National Geographic" would have any info about how to lay Dlinka to rest in his mind. Perhaps articles on female gorillas could divert his attention, but they might actually make him pine all the more? He was not sure at this point.

His ace-in-the-whole (sic) wish was that he would have a mini-stroke which would disable her from his memory, as well as the entire left side of his body, unfortunately. But it would be worth the cost he thought, though it would sure put a crimp in bicycling or playing the keyboard, even though he had never progressed to even the lower-crummy level. (Eckstein Book 4)

He'd imagine Dlinka far away, in some castle, with little kittens snuggling near her face as she lay in bed in ecstasy awaiting some real, brutal man of means to enter and make it known to her that what he wanted would prevail, a thought so abhorrent to her that she found it irresistible.

He left the porch swing, went to the silence of his lonely room, a line from "Night and Day", and slept his time away.           

[Oliver]

[Ladies and gentlemen, all one or two of you, there was intended a long, rambling installment right here last evening. It had been completed but it was lost somehow via a wrong click somewhere. This shall be an attempt to reproduce it, an extremely all but impossible task for the mind at hand, the only one, by the way, that I have to work with, what's left of it. Thank you.]

3 yrs. after Dlinka left:

She had not really gone very far away physically. No matter, though, since we all know we can be face-to-face and be millions of light years apart.

She was quite adept at blocking him from even the strayest of thoughts, most probably from a deep embarrassment of ever having given him more than a moment or two and then had incredibly continued. What was worse, she had made the initial contact. She had even told Binky once that before he ever had even a notion that a Dlinka existed, that she had wondered what sort of person Bink was underneath. (she had heard him play bagpipes publicly once before he knew she existed)

Since she ended up rather nearby after 3 years--which Bink didn't know--still, he wondered occasionally what would happen if they somehow had seen each other passing by somewhere. He figured he would be justified in giving a friendly hi and maybe even saying something innocent, just to see how she'd react. However, he knew he'd probably pretend to ignore her or literally leave so as not to invade her wishes of leaving forever and a day. After all, death is death.

She never thought of a possible unintended encounter since her mind was great at hiding, not only from any memory of Binky, but of the general emptiness of her days and nights. It should be noted, though, that it is much the destiny of many older women to live what seem to be very lonely, perhaps yearning lives, especially the loners. And Dlinka had always felt a loner, even in the midst of great attention in social situations.

If Binky had thought about it, he would have imagined her perhaps in Europe, happily in love in her autumnish years, focusing on the richness of the moment, moonlit walks, holding hands, laughing together. He would have been melancholy to have known of her solitude--which she would have laughed at and replied with being perfectly happy to be miserable, tongue-in-cheek.

And so, 3 yrs. later, the weak human, Binky, still sat on the porch on a beautifully cool, clear night in early June, gazing at the almost full moon and feeling sad and lost. Dlinka would gaze upward too, from her tomb, but in total blankness in never having felt she had ever found much of anything in life. 

I ask you, which is the more pathetic situation?*

*Enter the "Who Is More Pathetic, Binky or Dlinka" contest. Send entries to Oliver c/o edanville.com Void where prohibited. Chances of winning: 0.00% as there is no prize awarded. Taxes, licenses, fees where applicable. Early termination fee applies, and it's a doozy. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of this station or its affiliates though there may be a wombat in Peru that sorta thinks like Oliver. Employees, their relations or affairs are not allowed to enter, though there are any number of ways to circumvent that. Drive safely. Remember, the life you save may be Uncle Chudwog's.   

 

 

[Oliver]

10 Yrs. After Dlinka Left:

Binky was dead by then. He had lived the rest of his life alone, untouched, with only a few special memories for which he always felt grateful. Now and then he would remember and then seem to suddenly realize that hers were the last hands he had held, and hers were the last lips that ever smiled at him in any special way.

His life ended in the same fashion in which he had lived it: with extreme fortune. He passed away from his earthly constraints while asleep; to enter another realm of awareness--and to try to do a better job of it the next time around.

Who knows what his dreams were of as his heart stopped. Maybe they had terrified himself to death. Perhaps they were of some long ago tender moment, vaguely real or imagined, of 2 hearts beating as one. Or was he dreaming of the isolation the mind can feel, the utter pointlessness of being surrounded by life but not being there at all. He had pretty much over his last years gotten his house in order so to speak. When he was finally discovered, per his instructions, he was quietly laid to rest near his parents and grandparents, no announcement, etc; Binky Bathos felt that he would not be missed (and he was quite correct)

Now, as for Dlinka Dooby, she lived decades and decades afterwards. Basically she made Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations" seem like a party girl bimbo in comparison. In a sense, Dlinka lived in some sort of an alternate type of Universe where all the feelings and situations that drag most people wearily down actually boosted her up. At 98 she fell from a ladder attempting to save a tiny frightened kitten from high in a tree. She fatally struck her head. The kitten did make it down safely some time later.

The mind's limitless perspectives are indeed fascinating. It turns out, though, that the secret to old age has nothing to do with those perspectives, whether sweet or miserable. No, to exist longer has mostly to do with genetics and absorbing what is essential, that is, what is good for longevity, more-so than absorbing what is bad for longevity. Add luck, and there is the answer.   

[Oliver]

It is interesting to note, if for no one other than Binky, who was unaware, that Dlinka's departure was to a very strange, mystical place, a place he would never have imagined even though he was always attracted to lengthy descriptive writings about large, old houses by the likes of Hawthorne, Dickens and whomever else filled his pages expressing  a physical house as a living or dying creation.

Her house, in essence, was cloaked in nature, though surrounded by houses, presumably filled with humans. If there ever were some enchanted fairy tale ending, perhaps as in Beauty and the Beast, her house most surely would have been the setting for either a very happy--or sad--ending.   

[Oliver]

Tardwell had many enjoyable evening porch swing talks in earlier years, mostly with Tiddly, until Tiddly had to leave for various reasons. There in the darkness but for the streetlights and various houselights, the time magically passed with such talk, which made his life so rich, until he glanced at his watch with a small flashlight and knew it was getting too late to continue.

A few years after those talks faded away, he'd go now and then to the porch swing in the evening. How slow the time passed, alone with his own thoughts. He'd ask himself what he and Tiddly might have talked about, but, he could never really ad-lib one, and the special memories only made him sad.

He had waited most of his life, the wait ended by a miracle or two and once again the wait, (a final one?) continued.