Watching
Click on my name above. It will take you to my home page where you will find links to more stories and my serialized novel: "Five Million Yen".
—Those olives are so green they must be fake, she said.
—Are you addressing me?
—Yes.
—These are Caselvetrano olives. They are from Sicily. I actually wrote a story about them. They're very good.
—Is that the story about you picking up a woman and doing a nude portrait of her?
—Well, yes, but it was published by a small on-line site. How do you know it?
—One of my friends detests you because of another story you wrote and published on that site. I've been watching you. She's been watching you. You are an opportunist, which is a sort of predator. You meet women and use their tragedies for material. The whole city knows you are a predatory writer, worse than Truman Capote.
—Oh, I see, like the song by The Police?
—Well, yes, I guess, she said.
—You know everyone thinks that song is about love, but it's about stalking.
—No! she said stamping her foot.
—Sting realized that after he made the recording and someone called him on it. I painted a picture about that and sold it to Sting.
—No way. Get a life.
—No, it's true. So, are you stalking me?
—I'm not a stalker, you are. You're the predator. I should report you to the police.
—The rock group, or local law enforcement?
—You are such an asshole.
—Here, have an olive; maybe I'll paint your picture.
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Author's Note
The dangers of creative non-fiction.
Wait 'til she reads *this* one.
:)
Funny.
Thank you Sally and Amanda. If I go to a picnic this afternoon, I might just see this woman. Now that will be interesting.
A wacky encounter. "Have an olive." Ho ho ho. *
The olive filcher! Did you pay for that olive you offered the man watcher? LOVE THIS, love this, love this. *
Thanks Jake. Good ending for the story, but she didn't take the olive or pose.
Ann-
Hey at those prices at Whole Foods it's allowed to taste one olive. She didn't bite the bait. Small minded womens, gossipy crones with big back stories. Those little town blues.
*
Thanks Sam.
There is a Woody Allen quality to this story, yet it has intrigue, too, something a Woody Allen expose may omit. I refer to Allen's reality-based cinematic reportage rather than to his story fiction. I like his fiction as well. I particularly remember a story he published in The New Yorker about finding a preschool for a young child in Manhattan. He adopted the ethos of Gorky to write the story, a satire. I am attracted to the nature of reality as revealed in the olive story. The objections of the woman are played out in a specifically feminine tenor; whereas when I as a female writer write a locally-born anecdote, locals may alternately distrust or lure me in the angry fear or hope that I will write about them -- they distrust or appeal to a female power of the pen as compared to distrusting male sexual prowess, as this story of the olive seems to convey. (This is my further note. ... ) I wish I could fav it again and see it high on our list of recommended stories because it concisely constructs epistemological parameters in reality narrative. *
Wow Ann, that is some high praise and insight into the craft. Thank you for making this additional comment.