Two Worlds

by Simon Maslin

It took about half a second to realise that I had, once again, fallen victim to the spastic twitching of my big mouth; that tremendous organ of self-destruction which has led me into so much trouble before. Your face, which I had always thought beautiful from its unusual symmetry, began to twist and dissolve into a raging mask of disgust as you screamed at me in your characteristically pure feminine fury.

At times like these I always want to just walk away, or at the very least be in possession of a good measure of decent whisky; but as it happens, I was driving that night, driving you back from another of our interminable evenings attending some social soiree or other--your friends hosting, mine conspicuous by their absence. It had been a long night, spent listening to the self-congratulatory proclamations of personal success from a dozen market traders, bankers, lawyers and other assorted city personnel, all vying with each other to see who had the most extravagantly appointed riverside condominium, or sleekest German car, or most grotesque income. Your friends, the beautiful people.

I had been quiet for most of it, watching from the sidelines, looking at you, so elegant amongst your own kind. Though I was your partner, I was not one of them. I worked in a bookstore for Christ's sake. I was just another guy with an arts degree and no ambition, trying to get along without getting hassled too much by the rest of the universe. You had fallen in love with me, you once said, because I was so different to the kind of people you knew--I had fallen in love with you because you were so confident and ambitious, in other words, for the precisely same reason as you did. Opposites attract. Isn't that what they say?

But now, here in the car, I feel a thousand miles from you though you are sitting beside me. You are still screaming at me, though I say nothing. My eyes are on the road ahead. I am thinking of the last six months, the time we have had together so far, during the most part of which I have felt as if we were growing into a single form and purpose. I finally had begun to feel that I was not fundamentally alone.

I don't feel like that anymore. As ever, the cause has been insignificant in itself; one of your more obnoxious banker friends had gotten drunk and had been spouting off about how "Disgusting it is that so many people these days, so many so-called comedians on TV and in the papers, talk about drugs all the time, like they're not a problem ... like they're something normal people do..."

All I had said was that he didn't know what he was talking about, that the consumption of recreational drugs was something that normal people did, that hell, even I smoked weed occasionally. You looked at me like I had just confessed to raping your mother and then you had screamed and screamed and screamed at me in horror. Luckily we were in the car by then and on our way.

You’re acting like I'm a criminal, like I'm some sort of freak--like all our time together means nothing to you in the face of this bizarre ideological divide; I've betrayed some conservative streak which I didn't know you felt so deeply.

I'm thinking that you and I are so different; your world is comprised of ambitious, successful people on the make, who know where they are and where they're going. People who surround themselves with their equally ambitious peers and genuinely feel part of something important in their whirlwind metropolitan lives.

The only people I ever hang out with are as restless and lost as me--people who don't understand what the word ambition even means. My world is composed of normal people who hang out, play records, get drunk and like to pass the odd joint round the room on a Friday night. That's it.

I tried to explain this cultural dichotomy between us, to be rational, but still you are screaming at me, telling me I'm some junkie, telling me I'm a loser, telling me that obviously you mean nothing to me because things are so bad that I'm seeking escape through some narcotic downward spiral... as if that could ever be true...

...and I'm still wondering how it was that our world became two and then suddenly one, with me alone.

The Author

Simon Maslin is a writer and cynical journalist of the human condition who has published short fiction and poetry in several international electronic publications. He has also released a novel and several other books through his own imprint via www.lulu.com. He plays a mean blues guitar, lives in Southern England and interfaces with the universe largely through his website.