Writing Assignment - Autobiographical Character Study
by Darren Stone

He didn't even have a chance to write a note this time.

Sure, he managed a couple quick, flirtatious e-mails, but not his patented syrupy testimonials of undying love. Not just yet.


Fourteen years after his divorce, and he still had trouble asking 'em out. "I just don't get it," he pondered, "Why God would make such a hopeless romantic so incurably shy. Thanks, Pal."
He did everything he could to enrich his life, and "put himself out there." He took language courses and dancing lessons. He joined a gym and he studied acting. No takers.
He composed music, wrote short stories, designed guitars and even built a website to occupy time.

Time, he had.

But love........well, of course, love is what he wanted. He DREAMED of love.
Literally.
Every night, every dream - sweet, considerate, starry-eyed, rest-of-your-life love.
And every daybreak - the reality that this was still a half-empty bed.
Not even her smell on the pillow.

So, his mornings were often spent in sadness, and people learned to avoid him. The grump!
"The grump, indeed," he mumbled as he reached for the disappearing face in last night's episode.

Sometime today - any minute now - he was ready to give up and become a monk. Maybe then, the dreams would stop.
"Dreams....Bah!....my punishment for believing," and he hated that he was turning cold and hard.

Ten years since his name was linked with someone else's. And then this last girl just comes out of nowhere. "Yeah, right out of nowhere with all that negative energy and gettin' me all confused.....just when I was beginning to accept cable television and a cat."
It didn't take him long, though. Just a few well-chosen, insensitive words last Saturday, and she was outta there.
He didn't even have a chance to write a note this time.

He pulled the covers higher and went back to sleep.