For the Wednesday Write-in
“You must be tired, because you’ve been running through my mind all day.” The girl is grimacing before she even finishes and Marie shakes her head, frustrated. “No no, sorry. Jesus, I’m a fucking idiot.” She takes her pocket watch out and spins the seconds hand back for the fifth time. The noisy common room slows and then reverses, pushing back the repercussions of the future, giving her a little more time to get the present right this time.
Jacky Hillary 
I love that when your stories aren’t overtly sinister, there’s always something bubbling under the surface. This is quite sweet and comic on the surface, and we feel for poor Marie trying so hard. And yet, it’s a little bit terrifying. There’s something of the obsessive here, bordering on stalking. It’s like watching Groundhog Day, and being just a little bit creeped out that the main character is repeating the same conversations over and over to learn as much as possible about the love interest, while she remembers none of it. Interesting 😀
Only I could write a comment longer than the original story.
Haha – I actually wrote and abandoned three different stories this week, and all of them were straying into 500+ words territory which isn’t what I wanted at all. Although I normally go for something fairly long, I was finding this week that the more I wrote, the worse the story got which is….about the worst thing that could ever happen to me but I guess is a lesson in fitting more into less?
Anyway, I really enjoyed writing this one – You’re right, I always have this suggestion of something being a little amiss because I have this deep belief that you just never know people – that nobody could imagine the weird, creepy or even just morally corrupt things that people would do – if they had a chance. I guess because that is something I live my life by (paranoid) then it’s pretty natural for me to always explore this in writing. But, y’know. W/e. I now have also written a comment longer than my original story, jeepers.
I was a little confused that it is a girl trying the line out, because it’s typical bloke in pub chat up kind of line. I’d assume a girl would be more original, because she’s heard it before innit. But I can get that its a girl, though why in a common room? I kept reading it as a girl who said yes to the bloke with the chat up line, and now regrets it and wants out of the relationship. Which was quite a poignant reading. Is the common room meant to suggest teenage troubles?
It’s true. in hindsight, I would have made it a little clearer that it was Marie talking to the girl…. maybe even given the girl a name. Marie is trying to “start over” with this girl, but she keeps getting it wrong, but is unwilling to just let the actual order of things run their course. But I suppose my focus was really on how obsessive Marie was. The common room was supposed to be some sort of vague academic background – halls of residence or something. Sorry it was unclear!
I really liked the idea of the reset, trying to get encounter right. I can only imagine how awful her other attempts were. Great flow, and transition from dialog to the rest.
Thanks, Craig!