by Suzanne Conboy-Hill
1. You said I would never want for anything. This is untrue – I want for a great deal.
2. You said I would never have to ask for anything - you would give me everything I need. You forget that you made asking impossible so this is not true either.
3. You said you could not imagine being without me. This is true. You have not had to imagine this for some time.
4. You took my silence as consent but this is another untruth. [See #2 above].
5. You made a vessel of my body and told me it was worship but you are an atheist.
6. You hid me from the world and told the world I had left. Another untruth.
7. I would give something back but you have cleaned me thoroughly, and anyway I only had what you gave me in the first place.
8. Because of #7 above I must be more inventive.
9. I have a lot of time between your visits and I have found the device you used to teach me how to demonstrate my devotion. Items #7, #8, and #9 are all true, as is item #10 below.
10. I have charged the device and adjusted its settings for maximum effect and I have placed it somewhere especially private for the next time you come down here to show your love for me.
11. You said we would be together forever. This is not true yet but see #10 above.
4 comments:
This piece is cool and twisted. I love the format. I half wish you hadn't told us which statements were true and which were not. The title was so intriguing and leaving it up to the reader to decide which statements to believe may have been a lot of fun. Either way, there is no doubt about it now and I love the ending. Nice work.
I wondered about leaving the truth or otherwise of the statements open but I thought that, in a piece of tiny flash, there was probably enough to get your head round as a reader. The format, for one, isn't straightforward story style and the ending isn't defined so a bit more guessing might have been an uncertainty too far. I'm glad you like it though - I think this prompt must have spooked me good and proper!
And you're a bit of a dark arts merchant yourself, I see (#98) - throat-gripping in all sorts of ways!
Brilliant piece of writing, Suzanne. Would love to know more about how this story ends - not well for somebody ... I hope.
Thank you, Tracy. I think we can safely say it doesn't end well for either but for one that's a relief, for the other, not so much!
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