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You, by Andrew Carter

20/2/2021

7 Comments

 
FOOD
No, I can’t imagine all of you relate. Except, some of you might remember the wonderful food for thought the muse inspired you with when you first decided to write. The food that appeared like an epiphany.

You want to pen a fiction story, but you can’t write it in the first person, or they’ll think it’s true. Besides, you’ve subjected yourself to the Internal Contemplation Unit (ICU), for objective evaluation. Them, those, and they recommend that you attend Toastaholics Anonymous to see if you have any crumby afflictions.

Everyone at Toastaholics Anonymous has similar personality traits. So, when your selfishness pops-up it convinces them that you’re a Toastaholic, too. And, when you confess you go through a lot of bread, they slowly nod their heads.

You hear a bunch of lip-flapping crazies disguised as wise sages purporting to know the remedies of life supplying guidance without a hint of ego attachment. Their little bit of leaven spreads through the whole lump of dough. Then, when they get home, they verbally abuse their partner – because they didn’t get their message across. You realise their human wisdom is worth nothing. In fact, it is minus.

So, you write about them in the second person because it’s all about them. Truth is, you’ve never written in the second person before so, you rise to the challenge. You like to get to know a person so, they’ll get to know you. It’s all food for thought.

It’s also been suggested you suffer from being a writer. You can’t understand ‘writer’ as being a mental health disorder so, the nastier ones label you a poet lorikeet. Shriek, shriek, shriek. They cook you from the floor with accusatory glares and let fly with suggestive inferences. What they are saying is that they talk too long whilst ‘sharing’ so, they put their angst on you because you choose flight sooner than fight. Thankfully, a lorikeet is a comical, colourful, food-loving bird.

Also, you have bipolar. It used to be called manic depression (an issue recognised by the Greeks for two thousand years). The word ‘bipolar’ sounds less manic and prevents wild confusion. You go up, up, up. Then, down, down…
Right down.

Twenty years later, you’re diagnosed with another label – PTSD. You suffer trauma, and you’ve always had high anxiety. Mood cycles range mild to severe. The Black Dog nips at you when you’re lonely. Mental health issues were there before that first binding diagnosis.

You laugh back at them, and you medicate.

If you don’t write, you’ll suffer. And, if your original diet of beliefs proves false, you’ll never rest. You’ll be a macabre attraction for finger-pointers pointing pointless fingers. It’s all bad food. Alternatively, you can isolate which fuels the fire of discontent like petrol poured into hell. It doesn’t matter what brand of affliction you have.

Or, you’re a reflective detective and your main objective: to write great stories so the world will understand the value of the light brought into their lives.
7 Comments
Sue Clayton
21/2/2021 01:49:21 am

OMG, Andrew, as a writer who loves buttered toast, I was so drawn in by your story I didn't even notice my own black dog (a literal dog) licking the keyboard.

Reply
Andrew Carter
21/2/2021 08:30:20 am

I love toast with butter, too. And for a change from vegemite. Maybe they should call vegemite on toast 'The Black Dog'.

Reply
Pamela Kennedy
21/2/2021 04:25:55 am

Well done..kept me interested throughout the entire story.

Reply
Andrew Carter
21/2/2021 11:36:54 pm

Thanks Pamela. I pressed the wrong reply button (msg below)

Reply
Andrew Carter
21/2/2021 08:32:45 am

Thanks, Pamela. It was a bit of an experiment at second-person point-of-view. I definitely prefer first, and especially third-person.

Reply
Mary Wallace
23/2/2021 06:13:35 am

This was well done Andrew. "If you don't write you suffer" has hit us all at one time or another.

Reply
Andrew Carter
23/2/2021 04:21:34 pm

Thanks Mary. It takes some much longer than others to realise their calling is a duty.

Reply



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