Godot, waiting

Welcome to The Spot Writers. The prompt for this cycle is to write a story that involves waiting for something.

This week’s contribution comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara is an Italian author and currently lives in Berlin, Germany. She writes fiction, with a focus on children’s literature and science fiction.

 

Godot, waiting

(Inspired by ‘Waiting for Godot’ by Samuel Beckett)

by Chiara De Giorgi

Created with Canva

A misunderstanding, dumb friends, and their excessive flair for drama. That’s how I became a celebrity.

 

First of all, let’s be clear: I did not stand my friends up. I told them I would meet them by the old pine tree in the middle of Main Square in the city where we used to live at the time. And where did they go? They went and waited (reportedly for hours) under the big oak tree at the entrance to Central Park.

Combined, those two have as much brains as a hen.

With nothing better to do while they waited for me at the wrong coordinates, they talked and talked and talked. If the stories are to be believed, they exchanged profound, albeit confused, thoughts. And they somehow convinced themselves that I would soon come and shed light on their doubts and existential questions. I would dispense upon them a sort of superior wisdom - unclear where I was supposed to get it from, by the way. But I guess that, to their brains the size of half a walnut each, common sense and logic are extraordinary notions.

I just promised them a beer after work, for Chrissake! We exchanged a few messages during the course of the day, and I sensed that they were a bit stressed. It felt like the nice thing to do, to buy them a beer and chill out together for a couple of hours on a Friday night. Did they try to call or message me, when they didn’t see me by the oak tree? Of course they didn’t, and they didn’t even reply to my messages or pick up the phone when I called, for that matter. Too engrossed in their philosophical talks for that, I surmise.

I finally managed to reach them and clear up the misunderstanding about the meeting point the next morning. I suggested that we make up for the lost night out, the beer, and the chilling that same evening, and arranged for us to meet by the oak tree in Central Park. I figured that, since they had been there the night before, they might as well go back, to reduce the risk of them getting lost looking for the big pine tree in Main Square. (It’s the only pine tree and it’s right in the middle of the square, but at that point I wasn’t relying much on their psychomotor skills). So where do you think they went, those two knuckleheads?

Exactly. To the pine tree in Main Square - at least, they found it. While, of course, I was waiting for them by the oak tree in Central Park.

Once again busy exposing existential issues to each other, they ignored my calls and messages. Now, I must confess: I suspected that they were in Main Square, but by then I’d had enough of their dumbness. I went for a beer by myself and wasted some time on social media until I was bored and went home.

This was on Saturday night.

By Monday, the story had blown way out of proportion. They had turned me into some sort of elusive entity endowed with cognitive abilities and enlightened, mysterious insights - which, I am sorry to say, I do not possess in reality - besides being someone who stands their friends up, of course.

Godot this, Godot that… Between those who wanted to insult me for snubbing my friends two nights in a row, and those who wanted to question me about the meaning of life and the purpose of waiting, I couldn’t take two steps without being stopped.

I changed my name, moved to a different city, but it was all in vain.

The two dunderheads were interviewed, the story ended up in the newspaper, a book was written, it was turned into a theatre script, and I lost count of the money I could have made if I had secured the rights to their absurd story. I decided to release my own version of the events but, since it was way less intriguing than what those two dummies had concocted, it was a complete flop.

Things changed when I started my rock band: the Waiting for Godot. We write lyrics that are filled with existential questions and abstruse phrases. The more obscure and intricate they are, the more people like them. You have no idea! Dissertations have been written on the refrain of one of our singles: ‘Ambiguity is to dare to wonder’*. The higher meaning that people are ready to attach to sentences that make no sense at all should be the subject for an in-depth study.

Our cover designer prepared an enigmatic cover for our new album: a black, random, and symmetrical splotch on a white background. This attracted the attention of a Mr Rorschach, renowned psychoanalyst, who developed a personality test around it.

This has clearly gotten out of hand. I just don't know how to fix it. I no longer know how to anticipate the consequences of my actions: no matter how insignificant it seems in the moment, every little decision has unforeseen repercussions of an unjustified magnitude. It is as if the butterfly whose fluttering wings cause a hurricane on the other side of the world has wings the size of a hippopotamus each.

Think I’m over-reacting? Messages started popping up on my phone last week. The source has been identified as alien.

‘Don’t feel sorry about being dead’

‘You can choose to stop using demons’

‘Don’t be healthy, insist that you are a gnome’

‘You don’t have to imagine the air you breathe’

‘Dare to remind yourself that you are painful’

The agents at Area 51 have been alerted and they are monitoring my phone. All the world’s top psychiatrists are at work to interpret the hidden meanings of these alien messages. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. Or, to say it with the lyrics of one of my songs, ‘Surrender. Or don’t’.

 

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* all the unlikely quotes were generated by InspiroBot, “an artificial intelligence dedicated to generating unlimited amounts of unique inspirational quotes for endless enrichment of pointless human existence” (https://inspirobot.me/)

 

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/