When Pandora Takes The Plunge(A Short Story)

When Pandora Takes The Plunge

His attempts were totally in vain. I could see in them not only a blunt instrument of inadequacy, but also the unfavourable fads of a man driven by desperation more than by true zeal. To win me over, I think it’ll take a wholly different world to pay.

Haven’t I been so clear all along, of my not wanting staid, pitiful and majestic gentlemen to woo me, for whom I’ll be an eternal no-getter. Gallantry, is a virtue I really don’t care about in men. Nor shall one pass for a behemoth, if he’s gallant enough but hasn’t any petite qualities I’m particular about. Coming to what stature I intend to see in a suitor, I have some things to share with you in clandestine. Especially in connection to ‘Him’ who had failed to make a mark most recently.

Dave, as he had confided to me once over a moment most tender, is a renowned banker’s illegitimate son. An inadmissible shipwreck of a person projecting an unreal personality, he can be so unnervingly depressing at times. He has an ever-bickering attitude as an added disadvantage, doesn’t show a trace of seemliness as should’ve marked his ‘half gentry lineage’.

A poorly cut figure out of gross miscalculation, he feels like an outsider who was destined to be in the ‘inside’ always. The liaison that developed between us was rather a sympathetic gesture from my side, never tending to ‘the real thing’ but which he took all the way to be ‘the lock that binds roses’. Let it be.

Had I been more optimistic, I wouldn’t have shunned his hasty advancements, one by one. He was a hardcore materialist for the worst part, who often flouted at himself for his minute but ceaseless misgivings, a nature he’d imbued from a grave lack of identity. Maybe it’s the sheen that was missing in him, which gave me an immense space to flaunt mine. People who have known me real close won’t overlook the fact that I were always headstrong. Headstrong, with a clear notion of who I wanted to become if not who I am at present. So when an ill-minded boy sought refuge in my pitiful adoration for him, I couldn’t help but ooze the best results out of this wavy liaison.

We were already at a point, far past the possible inducement of any mutual mortification. I had told him uncountable times of how I hated his ‘not respecting my intentions’.

“You took me wrong, Dave. You picked the right person in me, but you have been insisting on making the wrong choice from day 99. You don’t get what’s in my mind, do you? You were just a utility wagon for me. On which I could place my self-dismay and push around as long as I wanted. I tried to quench your desperation by never opposing you outright. I allowed you to grow, keeping my grounds clear but which you never cared to check. If any branch grew out of your tree in a specific direction then it’s because I trained it to do so. It was I who gave it light, nourishment, dampness and a hope to cling on to. Now, it’s the same person who’s trying to take it away from you; for you no more deserve it. The divine prerogative is that ‘you live without being too greedy, too haughty’ both of which you have violated in a short span. I’m not sorry, I’ll never be; and I’m sure you’ll choke to death before ‘not so long’ passes” . We slept together, but we never walked together.

From whatever I’ve said, I know you’ll have drawn an overtly bitchy picture of mine; a capricious devil with a phony heart, you may call. What wrong has he done to offend me so? Nothing. Whatnot hasn’t he done to win me over, in laymen’s terms? Nothing more’s needed. He’s already the Hero. Then why? Who’s the devil!

I’ll try to straighten it out for you. Romance is a palimpsest improved upon by countless authors and arty technicians, who operate from the unreliable ‘outside’. The process however, has to take place internally. If there’s a hundred readable lines about Love, there are ten times more slurred undercurrents to it, swathed by familiar patchworks. So, it may be true that in the naivest vernaculars of ‘Love’, it’s spelt so correctly, not that it implies to be meant so.

In spite of my having ‘put his spirits out’ multiple times, he was dolefully resolute on not giving up on me. He would either go on until he reaches a dead end, or pursue me with the same undaunted vitality of a ‘desperate man’; God knows he might have a stroke of lucky lustre awaiting him !

As much as he kept to himself unswayed and full of optimism, I kept to mine, never deluding myself with favourable versions of destiny. Always did I entertain a possibility of my having to subject to his terms, out of fatigue than reciprocation. How long could one go without taking the plunge? That was the bitter thing here. A fettle will reach when I’ll certainly be wearier and overthrown by a dithering monster; him and his unfailing determination.

I’ve never even cared to think if he was true to his intentions or just wanted to prove a point. The proof won’t make your predicament any better or worse; you’ll have it when you’ll have it anyway. Now, is the time to think about lesser casualties. The action I take, must entail the least of lurid waves.

What will I do? Subdue him further to a point of no return, or unleash upheaval on humanity which has made life so miserable to us, at least in these matters. A man’s love for violence reaps death and vendetta, for materials reaps blood and more flesh, for everything else reaps the destruction of anything left.

To be unreasonable is totally favourable, when you’re in no hurry to pile up reasons. Just make sure that ‘when you take the plunge, you’re taking it by yourself’!

Shall I remain so, or open a box?