Let the hips do the talking

Anti-narrative is when the narrative goes anti. It is breaking-up language as aesthetic, it is messing up the rules. It is dada (dada is lazyness), a sense of playfulness, kill that cat absurdism. It is Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons and Donald Barthelme’s Sixty Stories and Forty Stories. Other anti-narrative writers include Italo Calvino, Daniil Khaarms, maybe even Boris Vian if you like. This is me lecturing about fantastic anti-narrative and maybe making it boring, that is not my intention. Here are some of the things I wrote when I tried to be anti-narrative:

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The male gaze

Rainbow is a rainbow is a rainbow is a rainbow. She is rain in a bow. Rain wet drops, bow half circle half moon. When she kisses your lips get wet and your cheek gets wet because she is rain. When she eats the bread gets wet the table gets wet because she is rain. But you love her but you love her but you love her because she is rain. Because she is rain in a bow you keep staring at her all day long all night long as long as there is sunlight to shine through the particles of rain. Because you love her because she is rain in a bow.

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Love conflict

It was a Sunday morning when Fiona decided that she wanted to get married. She did not have a boyfriend yet and she did not have a girlfriend yet so she decided to go to the shop and look for one. She found a man in the frozen section next to the frozen peas. She liked his blue face and thought that she could keep him as an accessory in her ear. As she made dinner, the man fell out of her ear. The cat picked him up and ate him. Fiona stayed up all night just to count her tears as they made her pillow wet. The next day she went back to the shop to ask for the money back.

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Portrait of Sheila

Sheila is a cat is a cat is a cat is a cat is a cat. She is my cat and she is not my cat since a cat can never belong to anyone. She is my cat because she lives in my house and because she sleeps in my bed and because she comes to me for food but then again she is not my cat.

What distinguishes Sheila from other cats is in many ways what distinguishes a person from other persons or an apple from other apples, it is in some ways nothing and it is in some ways everything. I say this because all is full of nothing, but that is something one has to find out for oneself. This is not what I am going to talk about now because now I am going to talk about Sheila.

Sheila is the sofa queen. The sofa is her queendom. The sofa is blue with big blue cushions and Sheila has her own cushion. On Sheila’s cushion there is a bright blue rug and on the rug lies Sheila. Her seat is full of cat hair and this is why nobody else will sit on Sheila’s seat. It is Sheila’s seat and it is her queendom.

From her seat in the sofa Sheila can see everything that goes on in the house. She has a seat with a view and she sees everyone who comes in and everyone who walks out and she can see if there are other cats on the patio outside the living room.

Sheila also has other places in the house and in the garden that are her places. There are the tiles next to the fireplace and there are the Persian rugs in every room. Sheila lies on the tiles next to the fireplace when the fireplace is heated up because she is a cat and cats lie down on warm places. She lies down on the Persian rugs whenever she lies down on the Persian rugs, that is, whenever she feels like it. She lies down whenever she lies down and whenever she feels like lying down with a displeased expression in her face. She scratches the rugs whenever she feels like it and whenever she has a displeased expression in her face. She lies down in the kitchen when is smells like fish from a casserole and then she miaows. When it smells like fish Sheila miaows silently and loudly and suffering and enduring until she gets the fish on her plate on the kitchen floor. Then she eats it and then she purrs and then she goes back to her seat in the sofa.

Or she goes back to her place on the tiles in front of the fireplace or she jumps up in the sofa where someone is sitting, she jumps up craving for company and a cuddle. Craving for a cuddle when someone sits down in the sofa Sheila comes pleading, pleading for stroking. Then someone will stroke her behind her ears and in her fur so soft so soft and Sheila purrs. Sheila purrs and purrs when she is stroked behind her ear purr purr purr purr purr my fur purr my fur purr my fur and then she sleeps. Sheila sleeps with someone stroking her behind her ear until she sleeps, Sheila purrs and purrs and miaows and eats and purrs and purrs and sleeps whenever she feels like it.

This is Sheila whenever she feels like it and then she sleeps.

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