Silver Linings
She accosted him as he entered their college dormitory. “Is it my fault? Did I say something?”
He started, shaken from his musings. “Sorry. Don’t follow.”
“I saw you entering the psychobabble office. They badgered me about my relationships with others. Didn’t think I said anything bad about you.”
He hesitated, reliving his confrontation with a counsellor from the Campus Cooperation Council. She demanded productive friendships and enthusiastic collaboration with his fellow students. Here was his chance to address those demands.
“No worry. Just a little pep talk,” he said.
“Come on. In Poli-Sci, they say our country stresses individual initiative, but in times of crisis, we join together to meet the challenge. It’s a bunch of bull. They’re brainwashing us, not meeting an external threat.”
He gazed at the mousy girl he remembered from last term. She was suddenly highly animated and much more appealing.
He pointed at a sofa in the residence’s conversation pit. “The college stresses academic excellence that supports our efforts to achieve our individual goals. But it also accepts the need for everyone to work together to meet the country’s challenges.”
She pushed away and perched at the far end of the sofa. “Fine, we study hard and win Nobel prizes or run high-tech companies or whatever we’re after. The rest is garbage, a perverted picture of belonging, being part of a team. I can’t do it.”
“Why not? We’ll be friends. I can help you with math and biology, and you can help me with English.”
“Pragmatic friendships to follow the rules, not real friendships.”
He smiled, thinking friendships evolve. “And the teamwork requirement. Put more effort into the annoying course projects we must do in teams. They’ll notice.”
“But they’re so unfair. Last term, I worked hardest on each project. Some did almost nothing.”
“It’s how it is. Accept it.”
She glanced at her phone and looked up with a twinkle in her eye. “Cafeteria’s open. Wanna go eat?”
He rose, silently thanking the psychobabble counsellor. This could be the start of something good.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleGreat story Alan. I think it can be hard to form relationships if it’s not something that comes naturally to you – I speak from experience – if you are being forced into it, then it becomes doubly hard. So just finding someone, on the off chance, to speak to, who has similar interests, can feel pretty miraculous. Your story is very intellectual, which I’m not particularly, so it took me a… Read more »
Hello Carrie. Glad you enjoyed it. I have a chapter in my rather dystopic climate fiction saga in which a rather lonely, unsociable character is forced to ‘belong’ in the way the system wants people to belong. I thought that might make an interesting story for this new Voice.club challenge. I tried to put a positive spin on it, having the official pressure backfire and lead to a real friendship. I’ve been… Read more »
Hello, Alan. Carrie is right. It’s really hard to make friends if it doesn’t come naturally. Others are very fortunate to have found a true trustworthy friend and not a traitor. Great story, Alan.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleHello, I agree with your reaction. It can be really hard for many people to make friends. Think how much worse it would be if an oppressive system was watching all the time and forcing these people to fit into an unnatural form of friendship. They’d need someone to rescue them.
Yes, you’re right, Alan.
Really liked this Alan it was very thought provoking – I too would find it very unfair if I’d done most of the work and it was then labelled as a team effort.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleThanks for the kind words. I, like I’ve done several times on this site, tried to tackle too big an idea for a 350 word story. I meant the demand for collaborative projects that ended up with an uneven sharing of effort, and ‘productive friendships’ to be indicative of an oppressive government forcing everyone to bend to its will. If you want more about this and my preoccupation with humanity’s inability to… Read more »
I can really relate to the girl in your story Alan. I was once told that I was not a team player. The truth is I always prefer working alone. I think it’s a control thing. Not that I don’t see the benefit in working as a team, I guess I never found the right team! I like the two characters in your story. As Rick says, in the closing scene of… Read more »
Hello, I suspect preferring to work alone and do things our own way are common characteristic of writers. I had little trouble describing the girl’s perspective. I found getting the guy’s perspective right a bit more difficult. I worried he might seem insincere.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleHe didn’t come across as insincere at all Alan. I found him to be encouraging and supportive. As did the girl or she wouldn’t have got that twinkle in her eye!
I like it, Alan, the dystopian slant tinged with humanity and the promise of a fulfilling relationship that goes against dogma is a great back drop. Well written.
Hello, thanks for the positive feedback. The setting for this story is a scene from a book I’m working. I introduced the promise of a good relationship to make a story that fit the belong theme. I thought the dystopian setting and the young people finding an opportunity for happiness made a good contrast.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleI like your futuristic take on what a relationship between two young students could look like in a more controlled state, Alan. There is a lot of Orwell between the lines. Could you enlighten me concerning Hawthorne House 2038, please?
Hello Christer, Orwell is one of my favourite authors and 1984 one of my favourite books, so you made my day by mentioning Mr. Blair. I adapted this story from a scene in the novel I’m working on. It is set in 2038 in a university residence in Lowell, Massachusetts. I thought Hawthorne an author from nearby Salem would be a suitable name for the university residence. The setting was from my… Read more »
Thanks for the information, Alan, and good luck with your project. I see that you are very careful to make details in your book not only believable, but also applicable to other, real facts. You are doing a thorough work and this is a great part of it.
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To Leave Comments - Please SignIn with GoogleAlan, I agree with what everyone else said, a forced friendship seldom works. As Carrie pointed out, it feels pretty miraculous if you find someone with similar interest. It does seem that your two characters might just have found that special friendship! This is a great story.