For the next few months after meeting Vivian twice, Andrew saw her sparingly. They had mutual friends and they saw each other at church a few times, but it was nothing serious. She was in town for college, but in addition, her parents had also moved back, so the family was still getting used to the Bay Area. Andrew was more than happy to take Vivian to places that had sprung up since she moved away, or that she had never known in the first place. His dates with her were platonic, but he always got ready for them as if they were romantic.
I wish I could say that after a year or two of Andrew and Vivian mostly minding their own business while still getting coffee or lunch monthly, they began to come closer to love, but that’s not quite truthful. They drifted apart naturally. Hanging out once a month became once every other month, a couple of times a year, and by the end of four years, they had stopped being friends and shifted their relationship in between “acquaintances” and truly “friends.” It is the purgatory you put dozens of people you know, but it is a purgatory wherein they have also placed you. This mutual purgatory enrollment is a natural passing of time. As social as we can be, it is unreasonable to sustain emotional involvement with as many people as we often wish. Andrew and Vivian were something more than acquaintances, but something much less than friends. It was also something that happened with their tacit consent.
It’s a pattern with Andrew. He isn’t a go-getter, a goal-grabber or any other alliterative and hyphenated term that reminds people of broken dreams. Once he sniffs defeat, he acquiesces. He wanted to be an actor once, but he faced reality and settled for a major in engineering. He wanted to be a writer, too, but found that his works lacked the quality he expected of others. He wanted to be with Vivian, to care for her, to hold her and do all those things he supposed were standard in a loving relationship. He wanted so many things, but when it seemed highly unlikely, he decided to take the safer route. Better to avoid defeat and remain undefeated.
This, however, held no bearing on his personality. He was as charming as a garden snake in Eden, but his fall from grace would not stifle his joy in life one bit. He accepted all of life, the good and the bad, and believed heartily and merrily that things will just somehow work out. He is naïve, but he knows it and doesn’t care. It’s easier not to care about your shortcomings than to deal with them, and at the very least, his positive qualities outnumbered his negative ones, in his mind. He didn’t consider that while they may outnumber his negative qualities, they may not outweigh them.
Actually, he did, but it was much later than the time period we’re talking about now, which is a few years after he met Stacy. I mean Vivian. I have no idea who Stacy is. Sorry.
Remember what I said about Andrew not always accomplishing his goals? It applies to his writing. This story began with Andrew’s story, and a few years later, he had not even finished that story. He still had no idea where he was going with it. Did he want it to be autobiographical? Partially autobiographical? Or should he make up new characters from scratch? He had little to no experience drawing up characters. The ones he created were so shallow. He didn’t know how to tell a story. How was he going to write this thing?
He wrote anyway.
“One of the problems with farts is that they smell only sometimes. If you get too comfortable with farting, you are setting yourself up for bad times. Not only will you be unable to detect the stench of your farts eventually, but when you do release a genuine stinker, you won’t be able to predict it. In reality, no one can predict with absolute certainty if farts are going to smell or not, but in some cases, deductive reasoning can narrow it down, similar to weather forecasts.
For example, if you’ve had beans or cheese, both known to produce quite smelly farts, there is a greater chance that the fart you experience within the next few hours will smell. Another way to predict farts is to fart just once. If that fart smells, it is best to refrain from farting afterwards, unless the intended effect is to leave the air smelling like your shit. If that fart does not smell, however, it might mean your other farts may not smell either. Be warned, though, that those acclimated to their farts will be the least able to predict the rancidity of their flatulence.”
It was rubbish, a word Andrew only used in his writing and thoughts but never aloud because it sounds ridiculous if not said in a variant of a British accent. He had no idea what he was writing about. He was only thinking of stuff to write that he experienced at that moment. And it was at that moment that Andrew had an epiphany. I have no idea what it was, but I’m sure it was good. Probably something to do with his writing. Either that or farts.
