The Drabblecast

“Two”
© 2009 by Steven D. Lidster

He's the kid eating alone at the end of the table during lunch. You know the one. Every school has one, that dork that doesn't fit in. Thick glasses and pocket protector. The introverted bookworm even the role-players avoid. That's Donnie.

Donnie would protest that he wasn't a nerd. That he only studied from boredom because no one ever talked to him. And he only wore the pocket protector to keep his shirt from getting ink stains, or how was it his fault he was myopic anyway?

But in his heart he knew the truth.

And so it was one fateful day, his nose stuck in his Advanced Geometry text, Donnie strolled towards a most unexpected destiny.

He was concentrating on the reading assignment for Honors Geometry, a rather engaging chapter explaining "Planar Equations on Non-Euclidean Surfaces," as he was crossing against the traffic signal, completely oblivious to the metro bus that was rushing down the street and equally unaware of the cement mixer advancing from the other direction. Donnie saw both vehicles as locking brakes and screeching rubber pulled him from his studies. It was clear to Donnie just how tight a squeeze he was about to find himself in.

They say at moments like this time stops, that your life passes by in front of you. For Donnie pretty much the same thing happened, but it was the lesson he had just been studying that flashed before his eyes. He held his breath and turned 90 degrees sideways...away from the third dimension.

Now that he was two dimensional, Donnie easily fit between the two metal behemoths that were lurching to a halt. The words "Ross Island Sand & Gravel" scrolled like a news flash on the side of the cement truck in front of him. The drivers jumped out to view the inevitable mangled pedestrian while they wondered where the sound of shattering bones had been, drowned out by the brakes no doubt. They stood slack-jawed at what they saw. Two dimensional Donnie, thinner than the cheapest veneer, slipped out from between the wreckage and waved to let everyone know he was alright.



This turn of events in Donny's life didn't make things any easier for him in school. The bullies simply changed their usual taunt of “Hey fathead” to “Hey flat-head.” Even worse, now when they stuffed him into his own locker they didn't even need to open the door, but would simply slip him through the edge, then duct tape the locker seams to trap him, leaving him screaming, in his thin voice, for help until one of the teachers would come by and free him from his plight.

The final straw that broke the camels back came when Hugo Blaggenship folded him like a paper airplane and sent him sailing through the cafeteria at lunchtime. After two graceful loops, Donny found himself stuck in the acoustic tiles which lined the ceiling, unable to free himself and forced to listen to the, oh so witty, jokes and jeers from his classmates below until the janitor arrived with a sixteen foot ladder and pried him from his embarrassing predicament. He vowed that day to never return to school again. He could learn more studying on his own or online, and in any event, what college would accept him the way he was. People were generally narrow-minded, Donny had found, but not narrow-minded enough to accept a freak like him, he supposed.



Mom and Dad were not happy with their son's situation whatsoever. His mother would cry and beg Donny to please gain some weight. "A mother can't bear to see her son so skinny." Donny's father would argue and yell at the boy, telling him he'd never be a man with paper arms like that. But Donny would just look back with his flat expression, turn away from them, and disappear. He liked to slide though narrow places when he wanted to get away and think. While his parents shouted to him to "come back this instant," Donny stepped between the window frame and rode the autumn breeze like a leaf, down the street.

Sitting on a swing in the park and feeling more lonely than usual, he was starting to think they were right. Maybe he should turn back to the third dimension. "It would feel less confining, that's for sure." Mulling the pros and cons, Donny looked up and saw someone who wasn't there one minute, who suddenly appeared with a turn to face him. Someone who looked back at Donny with the same 2 dimensional face he had. Someone that was... a girl. There was Mary, the girl from school who disappeared last year. She used to hang out with the weirdos in the drama-club. Some people said she'd had a baby. Others, that she had died. But her parents never talked about it and they had moved away not long after.

It was Mary Crunkley, standing there in two-dimensional glory, button nose and thick horn rimmed glasses framing a smile that sprang from the joy of a yearning for companionship finally met. The two crossed the park towards each other. Their fingers intertwined like pop-sickle sticks. As they bent to kiss, no one across the way even knew they were there.

What a glorious afternoon they spent together, enfolding themselves in one another, lost in the special magic that comes with the discovery of that first love, that true and special, one-of-a-king, love. Between kissing and talking, it became apparent to both of them that they were, indeed, two of a kind, destined to be joined together, soul-mates who alone could understand each other. Each one knew in the shallow depths of their hearts that there would never be such a perfect fit or companion in the world. They decided that very day to vow to always be together. Two misfits made into one whole and perfect unity.



Donny and Mary half-ran half-sailed to his home. They were going to give his parents the news of their decision. "I'm in love with Mary and Mary loves me." Nothing could keep them apart. They were only going there to say goodbye before leaving to fly like a pair of tangled kites around the world.

He stopped in his linear tracks when he saw it, parked there in the driveway, shiny and new. It was red and, he gasped, it was a convertible. There was a sign on the hood of a brand-new car. "Donny come home, we miss you, Mom and Dad." No one would ever be able to call Donny a nerd again if he rode up in this beauty. He could leave Hugo in the dust, in that stupid beater of a car he was so proud of that he had gotten from his father who ran the local garage.

But Mary, well she was, I mean like, a girl.

Donny looked at Mary, then he looked at the new automobile, then he looked back at Mary, who returned his sheepish expression with a look of disgust. She stared at him with defiance, arms folded across her chest like an angry paper doll saying, "I'm not going back, and if you really love me Donnie, neither will you."

The decision was tearing him in two.

Interesting concept, that you become what you study. Go to law school > turn into a lawyer.
I thought you might go for a rock / Mary / scissors ending, though.

I'd have to agree and say it's an interesting concept. I particularly enjoyed the "tearing him in two" at the end. Seemed that he was torn from being accepted at school by riding a motorcycle, and loving a girl that their only shared connection was the fact that they were both two dimensional. All in all, not bad.

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed this little piece of absurdity.

Certainly their relationship is two-dimensional, as most teenage romances are, but they share more than that in common. They're both nerds, after all.

For the final line I imagine a Foley effect of someone ripping a soggy piece of paper towel.

I thought we were going to have a joke about chads both dimpled and hanging

Changed it from a motorcycle to a convertible. What responsible parent buys his teenage kid a motorcycle?

Those who are trying to buy their son's love!

Those who have sold their son's liver.

You have a twisted mind, strawman. I like you.

I've added in a middle section, and fleshed out the "falling in love scene" and gave a bit more depth to the denoument. Curious if it's better this way. Thoughts?

Congratulations, ROU. I enjoyed the reread. If you get good criticism, it should enable you to improve your piece. Going ahead and doing it let's the readers see the difference, and experience the new reaction that the revision produces. I could see, for example, writing a piece for class, and the teachers saying your characters are two-dimensional (a not uncommon critique). And so you rewrite the piece to actually have these two-dimensional characters. Then your teacher may say that they are a bit flat. Which causes you to rewrite the piece including a one-dimensional professor, and call it "The Shortest Distance Between the Points I Wanted to Make." This could ultimately produce a great story about a sub-quantum time traveler, like Levine's Babel Probe.

Or maybe not. But what a trip!
Kronos 2009 batteries getting frothy.

strawman wrote:Congratulations, ROU. I enjoyed the reread. If you get good criticism, it should enable you to improve your piece. Going ahead and doing it let's the readers see the difference, and experience the new reaction that the revision produces. I could see, for example, writing a piece for class, and the teachers saying your characters are two-dimensional (a not uncommon critique). And so you rewrite the piece to actually have these two-dimensional characters. Then your teacher may say that they are a bit flat. Which causes you to rewrite the piece including a one-dimensional professor, and call it "The Shortest Distance Between the Points I Wanted to Make." This could ultimately produce a great story about a sub-quantum time traveler, like Levine's Babel Probe.

Or maybe not. But what a trip!
Kronos 2009 batteries getting frothy.

Lol, I miss your replies most of all, Strawman... (Tin-Baker and The Cowardly Tweed, leave in a huff) How come there aren't any Strawman SS's or Drabbles around?

There are a few. But my specialty is the little-practiced 136 word format called the Run-on.

It's a fun story with a fun premis