The response of "a doomed romance" was given to me by one of my new roommates, an elegant Pakistani/Iranian, who was born in Hong Kong and was thus technically British, despite being from New York. My back story of being a white chick from New Hampshire was somewhat less exciting in comparison, but she didn't seem to hold it against me.
Her original response was specifically to write about a failing relationship - one that was well established, but clearly reaching a somewhat upsetting end. I asked her if she was a fan of romance, and she said she either liked super-perky romantic comedies, or deeply sorrowful tragedies - absolutely nothing in between. What was interesting was that she didn't feel either type romance was particularly realistic. Romantic comedies were hyper-idealized insanity, while romantic tragedies were often over-dramatic fantasy - two different extremes of the same sort of bullshit. It was, I thought, an interesting take on the literary concept of romance.
As for the Columbine/Pierrot/Harlequin thing, I have a bit of a thing for Commedia dell'arte, and had recently finished reading The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie. I don't know if this was entirely what my roommate was asking for, but she didn't seem to hate it, so I think it turned out at least marginally successful.
*
Harlequinade Bullshit
“Get
out of here,” said Pierrot, as his wife entered the bedroom, her face
filled with predictable concern, “I said I didn’t want to see anyone.”
“Then
why did you text me?” asked Columbine, dryly, the frustration as
evident in her graceful frame as any apparent sense of worry. She leaned
against the doorway and waited, knowing full well the agonizing
direction this conversation was headed.
“I’ve
just had the most astounding revelation,” said Pierrot, stretching his
arms out as if presenting a revolutionary concept, “Everything is
bullshit.”
“So I read in your text.”
“You
can’t deny it” Pierrot continued, “You can’t convince me otherwise. It
has become apparent to me that there is nothing but bullshit in this
world, and nothing will ever change it. Nothing matters, Columbine,
everything is essentially unimportant.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
His eyes narrowed. He spoke this last repetition as a challenge. There
was a pause as they held each other’s warring gaze, a thousand unspoken
battles in a single, bitter moment.
Pierrot blinked. “I just thought I’d let you know.”
Columbine
took a moment to turn away and pace in a small, private circle,
attempting in vain to alleviate the familiar feeling of resentment that
seemed to be forever on the rise.
“You knew,” she began, quietly, “that as soon as I read that text I would come upstairs to check on you.”
“Did I?”
“Yes!”
Columbine stormed forward, no longer willing to stay contained,
“Somewhere in that maddenly self centered ball of soul sucking
negativity you consider to be your brain, you are aware that I care
about you.”
“Am I?”
“Yes,” said Columbine again, “you know I do, I watch you exploit it at every possible opportunity.”
“Really?”
said Pierrot, condescendingly, “You’re saying that I, your loving
husband, am so acutely aware of your apparent concern for me that I
maliciously manipulated you, my poor, long suffering wife, to come up
the stairs into our shared bedroom purely so that I could use you as a
scratching post for verbal abuse?”
“You could say that.” replied Columbine.
“I make no such admittance.”
“Of
course you don’t. That would require you to consider other people’s
feelings. It’s not as if you would never admit to anything that could
possibly put you in the wrong, that would be insane.”
“Are
you really saying this to me?” demanded Pierrot, “Me? After all that
I’ve been through? After all that I’ve sacrificed for this marriage?”
“All that you’ve sacrificed?”
Columbine’s voice reached a new, rarely heard timbre. She seemed to
draw herself up, and in the flickering lights of the city outside their
window, she suddenly appeared to be something more than an agitated
wife.
“Would you like me to tell you,” she asked calmly, “what I have been through myself? What I have given up, for you?”
In
the distance, Pierrot could swear he heard the first, elegant chords of
a strange music, and for a brief, horrifying moment, he found himself
startled. Then he closed his eyes, and quickly regained himself.
“I
haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he said,
defiantly, “and as I previously stated, I would very much like it if you
would leave me alone.”
“Oh, would you?”
“Yes,” said Pierrot, simply, “I want to be alone.”
Columbine sighed, a long, bitter sigh born of a seemingly eternal series of these exact conversations.
“Perhaps,” she said, quietly, “if you really wanted to be alone, you should not have gotten married.”
“Perhaps,” said Pierrot, with an equal amount of reserved venom, “I should not have married someone who fails to give a damn.”
At this, Columbine found she had to work extraordinarily hard to restrain herself from physically harming her husband.
“You
really think that I don’t care about you in any way at all?” she
demanded, “that after all this time, you mean nothing to me?”
Pierrot’s reply was frustratingly reasonable.
“Yes,”
he said, “I do. I’ve come to realize that no one really cares about me.
No one gives a damn if I live or die. This world is bullshit, the
people especially, are bullshit. In the end, everything is bullshit.”
“Everything is bullshit,” repeated Columbine, once again.
The
phrase hung in the caustic air between the two theoretical lovers,
waiting patiently to be acknowledged. Pierrot looked away, feigning
indifference as Columbine stood, alone, searching through every word she
had ever learned for a perfect, suitable response.
“Fuck you.”
As
the words left her lips, filled with more impassioned hate than she had
ever before managed to experience, she felt herself flee from the room
and collapse into a graceless heap at the foot of the small staircase
downstairs.
She
felt herself unravel. Tears, which she hoped had not formed in the
presence of her husband, traveled slowly down her cheeks as she replayed
the last few terrible moments of their conversation. Never before had
she spoken in such a fashion to anyone, let alone Pierrot. She wondered
what had become of herself, watching helplessly as the man she was
supposed to love turned into something bitter and offensive, shouting
curses at him as if she had become the same.
At the height of her brooding, she looked up.
She
was unsurprised to find that her friends, with whom she had been
enjoying an evening at the time of Pierrot’s disquieting text message,
had all but vanished, and were replaced with one lone, colorful figure
leaning elegantly against the mantel.
“That’s hardly the way for a dancer to land on the ground,” he said, gently, “it’s terribly unbecoming.”
Columbine met his gaze with little effort, and asked in a tone of dark amusement, “Why does this keep happening to us?”
The figure, half-expecting the question but still sorrowful at its utterance, considered this.
“Often,”
he said, after a moment, “This is the way of lovers. Beginning in
perfect harmony, someone falls out of step, and very quickly, all nimble
footing is lost. When one attempts to grasp the other player and lead
them back to their place in the music, they find that their partner is
too lost to return.”
“Pierrot is not lost,” said Columbine, bitterly, “I am beginning to think he was never in step to begin with.”
The figure nodded.
“It
is entirely possible,” he said, by way of agreement, “but I do believe I
remember a time when you two moved as one. For a brief, ecstatic
moment, you looked into his eyes and saw all the wonder and romance that
humanity had to offer.”
“I did,” said Columbine, wearily, “and he looked at me the same.”
“Love -” the figure began.
“- is ever complicated.” she finished. The figure grinned, ever so slightly.
“You and I know that better than anyone.”
He
stepped towards her, balletic, and held out his hand. As she reached up
to grasp it, she heard a sudden movement at the top of the stairs. She
turned, and found her husband standing uncertainly above her.
“Pierrot.” she said, taken aback.
“Columbine,”
he replied, with reverence. He moved slowly downward to meet her at the
base of the steps. Gazing at her, he held out his own hand, and as he
did, the figure behind her took a gracious, if invisible, step back.
“Do you remember,” Pierrot asked, dreamily, “the night of our first dance?”
Columbine smiled, took his hand in hers, and led him toward the center of the room.
“Of course,” she said, “how could I forget?”
Slowly,
she began to move her feet, leading Pierrot in the dance they had
shared at their first meeting. The same, enchanting music began to play,
and she observed with some amusement that her vibrant, unseen
conversational partner was now leaning against the stereo in the corner
of the room. It was a nice touch, she thought.
She turned back to her lover.
“I remember,” she began, “A distressingly dashing young man. Elegant. Graceful. And to me, enticingly exotic.”
“I
remember you,” Pierrot replied, his attention largely focused on his
feet as he attempted to keep time, “you were ethereal looking, in a
dress of every color. No one had ever seen you before, it was as if you
appeared out of nowhere.”
“Perhaps I did.”
“It certainly seemed so.”
Columbine took a step back to spin Pierrot around, grinning as he nearly fell awkwardly to the floor in confusion.
“Doesn’t the man usually lead?” he asked, dizzily as she pulled him back up.
“Oh I think you’ve done quite enough leading,” said Columbine, “You’ve thought you were the leader this whole time.”
“Am I not?” Pierrot asked, suddenly cautious. Columbine spun him and pulled him up again, this time nearly letting him drop.
“Perhaps,” she said, serenely, “Now, returning to the subject of my appearing out of nowhere - “
“I’m not sure if I remember this dance,” Pierrot interrupted unsteadily, “this music seems different, somehow.”
“Have
you ever considered the possibility that I did simply appear from
nowhere?” she asked, ignoring his concern, “That before you knew me I
was possessed of an invisible, immortal existence which I abandoned to
reveal myself to you? That for all the petty, meaningless sacrifices you
claim to have made for our union, it is in fact I who have made the
greatest abandonment.”
Pierrot tripped over his own feet. He looked at Columbine, suddenly frightful.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of
course you don’t!” Columbine cried, dipping her partner forward with a
flourish, “You have never taken a single moment to actually attempt to
discern who I am. Our love was passion with no common ground, compatible
lusts without compatible souls. Once the fervor died down we began to
realize we had more in common as enemies than lovers, and look at where
we have arrived!”
“Columbine,”
said Pierrot desperately, “What are you saying? Why are you talking
like this?” He stopped, and perhaps finally realizing what she meant,
took a frightened step back, “And what, for the love of god, is this
music?”
“It
is the music of Columbine and Harlequin!” said Columbine joyously, and
as she said it, she spun smoothly into the arms of the figure by the
stereo, who caught her as if it was his entire purpose.
“Good evening.” said the man, breezily.
Pierrot
fell backwards, bewildered. The man in the checkered suit and black
domino mask, whom he had somehow failed to notice standing in the
corner, smiled elegantly as he spun his wife around with a skill he
could never hope to achieve. Columbine, now radiant in the colorful gown
Pierrot had first seen her in, seemed suddenly blissful, dancing with
the one man who could have ever hoped to be her equal.
“Who -” Pierrot stammered, “- who are you?”
“I am Harlequin,” said the man, bowing gracefully, “and this, as you already know, is Columbine.”
“We
are lovers,” said Columbine, in a voice Pierrot only vaguely recognized
as his wife’s, “All lovers. Eternal and invisible, we are the reason
love exists, and the reason that it dies.”
“But,” sputtered Pierrot, “you were...we were...”
“We were a moment,” said Columbine, “A moment that, as any moment, must come to an end.”
“A
shame you didn’t think to treat her better,” said Harlequin, dryly, “Or
else, she might have stayed, and you, Pierrot, might have won the heart
of love itself.”
“At least, now,” said Columbine, placing a light touch on his cheek, “You can finally be left alone.”
And
with a single, exquisite spin, both his wife and her eternal lover
vanished into the space beyond sight, leaving him alone - oddly
heartbroken.
“Bullshit.” he said, to no one in particular.
