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classify it

write your name and the names of those involved

and a number between one and forty-seven

neatly in the upper right-hand corner

for future reference

(F for fight. A for angry. J for jerk.)

analyze it

what could you have done but didn't

why it happened in the first place

dissect every syllable

every instant of your perception

(He was lying to me, wasn't he? Why?)

extrapolate it

what exactly should you do about it

what would happen if you do

or not

and will it be worth it?

(Just wait until he apologizes. It'll feel so good to ignore him.)

mwirth: Lizzy, I like the way you show that attempts to be rational about an emotional issue (classify, analyze) don't completely work (because at the end, the narrator finds a subtle way to continue to express hostility.) It sets up a nice tension. cgroom: I love the way that this mirrors how we dissect flash points after the fact; through artifical hyper-rational dialogs with our interior selves (epitomized by picking a number from 1..47), with those jumps to emotional truth. While I'm a big fan of this piece, I wish there were a way not not rely on obviously breaking between two modes -- perhaps in the flow of logical analysis, subtly choose words to hint at the breakdown and futility of logic in these cases...? Add comment