This Tale Ever After
The difference between stories and reality is that when someone tells you a story you think you have a handle on all the relevant details and allow yourself to feel that everything you need to know has been made known to you. Stories make you complacent. They offer you a small capsule of information with the premise that all you need do is take two of these with water and you'll be fine.
Real life is different. When you discover something in real life you have no idea how much of it you have discovered. When you overhear a conversation in a film you know there may be more to it but you are content that everything you need to know about the conversation you have either heard or will understand from the way the film plays out. When, from your own front room, you hear L say that he has to get off the line now, he thinks he can hear you coming upstairs, there may never be a denouement. When I tell you that I heard A say to someone on the phone last night that she has to get off the phone now, she'll talk to them later, neither you nor I have any idea what that means. Who it was, why they'll talk later, what they'll talk about and what it means for her and I. We don't know now and we don't know if we ever will. Maybe we'll forget and, unlike Chekhov's Gun, it'll remain an irrelevant moment in our lives. Maybe it'll play on my mind for weeks and while its details are never known it'll go off by mistake in a handbag and kill us both. Indeed, you don't even know who A is or why some girl being on the phone to somebody but not being able to talk to them now is of any consequence to me. You don't know where we were when she said it or where it fits in the timeline.
The difference between this entry as a story and this entry as a snapshot of my life is that, if it was a story, those extra questions wouldn't be that important. Either they're resolved, their absence is of its own merit or I'm just no good at telling stories.
If this is my life, then maybe everything else I'm saying here - and anything I say to you outside the confines of this small square of text - hinge on it and my inferences from any absences. The difference between stories and reality is that in life, anything that doesn't exist on paper does exist, really exist and is happening right now and anything you're not told might be more important than anything you are in ways you might never know.
Real life is different. When you discover something in real life you have no idea how much of it you have discovered. When you overhear a conversation in a film you know there may be more to it but you are content that everything you need to know about the conversation you have either heard or will understand from the way the film plays out. When, from your own front room, you hear L say that he has to get off the line now, he thinks he can hear you coming upstairs, there may never be a denouement. When I tell you that I heard A say to someone on the phone last night that she has to get off the phone now, she'll talk to them later, neither you nor I have any idea what that means. Who it was, why they'll talk later, what they'll talk about and what it means for her and I. We don't know now and we don't know if we ever will. Maybe we'll forget and, unlike Chekhov's Gun, it'll remain an irrelevant moment in our lives. Maybe it'll play on my mind for weeks and while its details are never known it'll go off by mistake in a handbag and kill us both. Indeed, you don't even know who A is or why some girl being on the phone to somebody but not being able to talk to them now is of any consequence to me. You don't know where we were when she said it or where it fits in the timeline.
The difference between this entry as a story and this entry as a snapshot of my life is that, if it was a story, those extra questions wouldn't be that important. Either they're resolved, their absence is of its own merit or I'm just no good at telling stories.
If this is my life, then maybe everything else I'm saying here - and anything I say to you outside the confines of this small square of text - hinge on it and my inferences from any absences. The difference between stories and reality is that in life, anything that doesn't exist on paper does exist, really exist and is happening right now and anything you're not told might be more important than anything you are in ways you might never know.