Wanting

I'm sitting here, at my desk, in front of my laptop, trying to write a story.

But where to begin? With a title? A catchy opening sentence? A plotline?

I start, as I always do, with a character.

My character is an ordinary girl. I can see her, sitting in front of me, fidgeting in a chair.

My long, blue fingers steeple and I stare into my imagination for a few moments. Where shall Jenny and I begin?

Jenny, your name is Jenny, right?

Well Jenny, where do you live? How old are you? What's your first memory? Your latest? Do you like chocolate, Jenny? Do you have trouble sleeping? What grade are you in? Do your parents live together? Are you artistic? Do you read dirty books? Do you have any friends, Jenny? Jenny, what are you afraid of?

The streams of questions flows unregulated and I blink, and begin typing down answers as they come.

Then, reading over my work, I check to see how much of Me Jenny has absorbed. I want her to have her own personality, after all.

A little girl with a remarkable intelligence; victimised to the point of suicide by her peers.

This is getting darker than I want it to be. But it's also truthful.

With a sigh, I press ControlS and wait for another, more sinister day to pull poor Jenny out of her drawer.

A man is lounging in the chair Jenny has vacated. He's sprawling everywhere. He's big, and bright, and as I think more and more about where I want this story to go, I see he's a hippy. From an anti-war protest, against Vietnam, I think. He wants nothing more than to smoke hemp and burn his draft papers.

You're a flower child then? Did you ever attend a protest? Do you eat breakfast every morning? Do you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend? A best friend? Both? Have you ever cried in the dark and had no one hear you? Do you wear socks in bed? Who's your favourite poet? What's the nicest time of the year? What do you want right now?

What does he want? That's the key, isn't it?

Everybody wants something. Everybody. A cup of coffee, a warm body to sleep next to, world peace… I've never looked into the mind of a human and not seen, first of all, what they want. Everything branches out from that.

What do you want? How much do you want it? What are you willing to do to get it?

Evil people want bad things. That's what society is teaching us. But I'm not so sure. You see, I think evil people want something too much. They might want something good, but after a while, the ends stop justifying the means.