Shame and Story

I have been experiencing shame, as I have often throughout my life.

I began a new writing project on shame. I produced 10 pages in one day. I have not touched it since.

I wrote a short story for a group of friends that I occasionally write stories with. I post it here, as I have not posted much else here. I have been busy and tired. Two papers have been sent to places. Two more papers remain to be sent to places.

A Brief Story: "To Understand a Face"

She looked and saw the familiar rows of faces on either side of her, always vanishing into the gray distance, always behind the thin thread. She found herself always checking, always looking for slight differences in feature, but one was yet to be seen. The expressions shifted, the eyes followed, but the faces stayed the same. The process was less urgent now that it had been going on for so long. But it was still unnerving.

The last thing she remembered from the old world was the argument she’d had with Allan that last morning she awoke in their apartment. “Kate, I can’t do this unless I feel you can start to trust me again…. I’m trying so hard...” Kate was unable to forgive him or forget about it.

The night before she’d dreamt of endless rows of faces judging him, scowling as he walked through an endless gray void. Two thin pieces of twine, stretched tautly along thin torches, ran parallel and disappeared into the gray horizon. Each face was identical. They did not move and their mouths did not move but everything in them said Shame.

“I’m trying so hard…” She twinged with pleasure at this desperate confession. She’d always wanted to see him feeling small, afraid; for once he was the one afraid that she was going to leave.

She felt that pleasure and felt that power and blinked and found herself in the gray dream. She looked at the faces on either side of her. She saw them seeing her and she knew she had to walk so she started walking. Shame, and she set out; Shame, and she moved her body; Shame, and she did not belong.

She hoped that Allan would be there when she got to where the faces vanished and life appeared. She hoped that he would be different and that she could be different and that things might be different.