The Curse of the Aposiopesis

The Curse of the Aposiopesis  

I sat staring at a woman in a devil tee shirt and a cotton east Indian hippy skirt mid-sentence. I don’t know where the thought went. My head was empty. She looked at me kindly and let the thought come back to me. It was hard to figure out where I was with my thoughts, that I had been putting into words. Her incongruous attire didn’t seem right for a Christmas party.

Maybe I was tense from the helping hand I had lent to make the party happen. My good young friend had his kitchen redone and it didn’t look like he would be ready for a party.

The house was covered in dust two days earlier. So, the old lady, me, rolled up her sleeves, vacuumed, dusted, and decorated with the help of some lack luster others. After eight hours of good work, I went home.

My friend had a hissy fit after I left. Those that were left behind straightened up in both senses. By the next day everything was ready for the party. It was a lovely party.

The kind witch lady was a good friend of a good friend of the host. I heard from the host that the kind lady said I had one hand and a foot in fairyland.

This surprised me but also made sense. I write fantasy fiction. I do this aposiopesis thing every once in a while.

Aposiopesis what a wonderful word, a sentence that breaks off and is left unfinished. It reminds me of secret admirers. I have never thought that I had any when I was young. Now that I am older some of them have come forward. I do not remember them talking to me. According to them they were too over whelmed to say anything much, hence that half sentence or silents.

My boy cousins come from a family of four boys. The eldest, David, was my age. We were around fourteen. The next one in my aunts family was Doug, four years younger. The other two were babies.

They had come from another state to vacation at the beach. My mother and I visited them at a hotel bungalow on the water front. This was the last time I heard from them in the next sixty-five years.

I found them on Ancestry after I had my DNA done. One of the babies also had his done. This lead to a friendly conversation on the phone with David. He hardly remembered the day.

His brother Doug, remembered me clearly. I was his idol up there with the movie stars of the day. All this said on email.

What could I say? He was a gangly annoying tag along boy. I felt bad for telling a seventy-year-old man this in such an impersonal way.

We had walked to the Pike amusement park about a block away. Done a few rides at David’s suggestion. Doug talked to his brother incessantly. He then suggested we should go under the pier to explore some sort of fenced off wash. Again, his brother shot him down. How can you remember a child who was frozen with Aposiopesis when you are right next to him? In the email he never told me if he married or had kids and what he had done to support himself. Bless his heart, I hope he has done well for himself and is enjoying retirement.

During COVID I posted pictures that were artistic and interesting I had taken over the years. The idea was to uplift the spirits during such a sad and frightening time. I am quite proud of my photos and everyone seemed to enjoy them. One of my eldest sons’ friends, Bill, started to comment on them.

Towards the end of COVID it turned out he was a secret admirer. He had come over to see if my teenage son wanted company. We had just gotten back from the beach and I still had on my bathing suit. He thought I was the loveliest lady. Of all of my son’s friends he was the only one that was not chatty and did not complete his sentences in front of me. Although he was in the Einstein category like my eldest and the other friends my son hung out with.

Bill’s mother worried about him for he had lost his dad when he was around ten. She said he had been depressed ever since and had a tough time coping. She was glad my son was a friend.

Through face book I found out he had moved to Maine, married a lovely lady, and ran a lawn business. He was a big teenager and a heavy man. He passed away in his fifties.

High school is full of unstated thoughts and half said sentences. For example, in English class I sat behind a good-looking young man and never spoke to him. Sitting behind me was a young man that admired me. I only found out when he wrote a note in my year book on the last day of school. When he asked for my year book it surprised me. He actually used a sentence or two. He wrote that he was looking forward to seeing me next year. I looked for him the next year but he was not enrolled.

Then there was the Will in typing. We were very chatty but he never asked to meet me for lunch or anything. In the first part of the class I did significantly better than him. He beat me out in the second half of the class. I was also a year older. In my year book he said I was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. He drew a picture of Fred Flintstone. Sadly, He was another one that did not go to our school the next year.

So, go figure...  

How many people have you known that dropped part of a sentence because you were so impressive. Or were you pulled into another realm for a moment or two?

By Leslie Kirc