Guest Post by Jane Doe
Did you see Velveteen Mind in your reader and got goose bumps? If so, let me apologize in advance for this post.
I hate to disappoint you, but this is not Megan. This is Mysterious Anonymous Guest Poster who wishes to remain anonymous. I’m posting here at Megan’s today because I begged and pleaded until I somehow convinced Megan I am worthy to touch her blog there are reasons I can’t write the following story on my blog.
This is the story of Dick and Jane and their torrid love affair.
Dick and Jane met when they were in their early twenties and not as little children with a dog named Spot. In fact, the Dick and Jane in this story aren’t even related, which is good because this would be a very sick story if they were.
See, Dick and Jane had a hugely intense and passionate relationship. Like tragic love story intense, only no one dies and there are no medieval castles with balconies.
The narrator of this story guesses their story doesn’t technically qualify as a tragic love story since no one died, but the audience here is intelligent enough to catch the drift. Boy/girl meet. Boy/girl fall passionately in love. Boy/girl are torn apart for this reason or that.
There was an irresistible attraction between Dick and Jane. Absolutely irresistible. To this day, almost two decades later, Jane can clearly recall the first time she saw Dick and the jolt she felt. Hollywood could script a movie scene from the moment. Jane was that love struck.
The narrator would like to state that she doesn’t necessarily believe in love at first sight, but she does believe in I want to get into your pants at first sight.
The narrator of the story is also sitting here right now with a Cheshire cat grin on her face at the memory scene that is in no way is a true story. *ahem* While the sexual attraction was there, the narrator knows it was more than getting into each other’s pants. The narrator also thinks it is safe to say the feeling went both ways. There was this magnetism between Dick and Jane that the narrator finds difficult to put into words.
In fact, the narrator is having a hard time putting any of this into words and telling this story that is not based on her real life. *ahem*
Jane fell madly in love with Dick. Head over heels, foolishly, accidently, whole-heartedly in love. She couldn’t turn her feelings off or stop it, though at times she desperately wanted to. It was always there, overwhelming Jane, making her feel things she’d never felt before, and truthfully, has never felt since.
To make a long and complicated love story short (meaning the narrator will skip the steamy sex scenes, including the chapter on glow-in-the-dark condoms and the sweet nothings whispered in the dark), Dick and Jane didn’t make it. Jane still doesn’t know exactly why they didn’t, they just didn’t, however heart-wrenching it was for her to have it end. But end it did and messily, as all intensely passionate relationships must end.
The narrator surmises there is no other way such passion can end other than a traumatic and messy severing.
And seventeen years went by without Dick or Jane knowing what happened to the other. It seems odd something so powerful that it couldn’t be resisted would end so abruptly and permanently, yet odd things happen every day.
Dick and Jane went on to live their lives in complete ignorance of one another until one day Jane stumbled across Dick on the internet.
The narrator feels the need to inject some reality into the story yet again. Jane didn’t exactly stumble across Dick. Jane doesn’t like to admit that she has Googled for Dick occasionally over the years, holding her breath in anticipation, secretly hoping she would find Dick and secretly hoping she wouldn’t.
On that fateful day Jane found Dick on the internet, Jane wasn’t sure what to do. Should she contact him? Both lovers have moved on in life, what’s the point? Does she dare touch the healed wounds in her heart? Jane knew she must be crazy to even consider it.
Jane has never prided herself on her sane actions.
It seems like the old saying of ‘history repeats itself’ holds true because Jane couldn’t help herself. She contacted Dick.
KABLAMO!
(That’s the sound of Jane falling out of her chair as the last ounce of sanity she had flew out the window.)
What was Jane thinking? The narrator says who the hell knows.
Dick replied to Jane's email.
KAWOWZA!
(That’s the sound of Jane throwing her upper body out of the window and taking huge gulps of air to fend off the feeling light-headedness.)
In recent weeks, Dick and Jane have exchanged innocent emails. They caught up on the major life events of the past 17 years – kids, marriage, jobs, yada yada. But then, Dick wanted to ask Jane some things that couldn’t be asked via work email. Dick wanted Jane to call him. So she did.
KAWHOOSH!
(That’s the sound of any sense Jane had left flying out of the same window.)
Dicks’s voice hasn’t changed in 17 years. He stills says Jane’s name the exact same way he did all those years ago. Jane couldn’t help but smile to hear it and she felt that old familiar swelling in her chest again. In just 30 seconds after hearing his voice. After 17 years.
The narrator won’t tell what was said in the overall (and still generally innocent) conversation because it isn’t necessary to propel the story. What is necessary for the readers to know is that Jane discovered she has blocked out their last night together.
While Jane does have some memory of that last heartbreaking night, her memory ends with the two driving in a car to some vague destination, Jane giddy just to be in Dick’s presence. Jane knows something must have happened after that because that was the night that ended their love affair once and for all, but Jane didn’t know exactly what.
Dick did remember and he told Jane.
Jane should have realized wounds caused by the ending of such a torrid love affair always heal weakly and jaggedly. But she didn’t. Jane is a little naïve when it comes to the darker side of the heart.
Instead, Jane was completely unprepared for the sudden fissure that erupted in her. As Dick retold the story, Jane began to recall flashes of events. Just a flicker of memories from that night caused her breath to shorten, her heart to feel as if caught in a vise, and her face to grimace in long-forgotten pain. Repressed memories began to surface and crack the walls she’d built to forget.
What has Jane done?
To be continued if the narrator feels Jane can withstand the debridement of this obviously poorly healed wound of the heart and Megan will tolerate this poor excuse for a melodrama to be on her blog again.
