Life and Folly

Fiction and reality. There is a place where one rubs against the other. It is that place where a story gets real interesting. Here a story weaves in and out of two distinctly different realms. Strangely though, they are not as different as you may think. “Life and folly” is just that. A blending of fiction and reality, written with a poetic intent hanging loosely by a thread. It might be Mary? It might not? In the end, we all play a part. See what you think!

Life and folly

Come on Mary, it’s all about the game you play. The first time I met you, I saw it all over your face, applied perfectly layer upon layer, a full day of mascara illuminating an over-zealous smile, a joker-like smile, a painted mask stretching your mouth, corner to corner, nearly to your ears. Your narrow squinty eyes were highlighted with purpose and intent, not allowing others to see in while you were able to see all just fine. Such refined practice and strategy. Your over-bearing presence weighed like a recessional dirge, sucking the life out of the room. The kind which is felt long before ever seen. However, I give you credit and thanks for the character study you have provided. I am sure a chapter could be written.

So let’s piece together a story. Youth, what it was, like for most born in the 50’s, brought a breath of fresh air. Being born into this new found freedom and liberation of post World War II meant relief and entitlement for many. But you soaked it all in differently, like a dry martini, not sipping, rather gulping in great quantities the spoils laid out and left behind by those in your life, more concerned with prestige and how they looked, especially at the expense of those less fortunate. This you learned and accepted as the norm. “Take no prisoners” was the battle cry you heard, and this became your lifelong motto.

Off to college you went. A “sorority girl” you became, this being the quickest, easiest way to free and plentiful drink, food, and easy guys looking for easier girls. This of course was your major even though the degree you were handed as you strutted across that stage after four years read “Business”. You knew full well where your elective time was spent, knowing even more in the years to come these “life lessons”, the real ones learned outside the classroom, behind the closed doors and the office walls would open up so much for you, as you willingly allowed.

The details of thirty or so years can be skipped to now. Here you are, mid to late 50s looking rugged and used, an irony in itself. The carnage you left in your wake made you think you were so inspiring. This explains the hours and layers of lies and deceit you apply to your face each morning. You know full well what you are hiding from others. Don't you know life and living has a way of leveling the playing field?

You have maybe twenty years left. If you are lucky maybe twenty-five. Yet now, instead of righting all your wrongs, you have made your new sole purpose in life a performance to be noticed. In this performance you believe all who are forced to be in your presence are impressed. Such crazy tricks your ego has played and continues to play day after day as the curtain drops on your “one act” play. This past weekend, I was in the the audience observing.

Epilogue: Oh such is the life and folly of human interaction, a choreographed jousting of one ups-man-ship… or should I say woman-ship, a childhood game once innocently played, now dominance ladened, a modern rendition of  “capture the flag” or “king of the mountain”. Neither man nor woman is immune to such life and folly. Sad and unfortunate are the internal desires of self-importance and control exhibited in posture and tone, two rams ready to explode upon contact with majestic horns, staggering and reeling, one in the same. Stars in the night should not be dancing now. Instead, a momentary lapse of consciousness alters reality until the genetically ingrained stubbornness of dominance and control of others wins out. Such an insatiable urge. No such skill is applied to yourself Mary, even onto death winning out. Oh the life and folly of us in a room.