The Gift (Short Story)

It was the month of June when she decided she was ready to offer something special to a young man that had been courting her for some time and that she had fallen in love with. After thinking about it for some time, she decided to give him her own self, her innermost feelings, her own intimacy: they were going to make love for the first time. She gave herself candidly, selflessly, completely. They continued to have a relationship, but soon it was not satisfactory at all. In fact, she felt sad most of the time.

Six months after that moment, by the end of the Holidays, she was meditating on why everything went wrong between them. As she analyzed every aspect of the situation, she figured out that their story had been very similar to that of a valuable, but soon forgotten, present. She decided to put her feelings in writing in the form of a short story.

The Gift
Short Story

One June, a young, attractive, professionally successful man received a gift: the latest version of a “Modern, Educated Professional Woman.” According to the promotional campaign, this model was able to offer “love, passion, communication, attention, and much more”. It was also advertised as “assertive, intelligent, but still charming and sweet”. If properly treated, the Modern, Educated, Professional Woman model was able to “offer many years of loving company.” Since it was a human model, it also included a vast integrated memory, consisting of previous experiences and cognition. This memory made the model even richer, more complete, intense, passionate; in one word, all that she was.

The problem with the gift was that he was not expecting it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it; it was just that he was not ready to accept it. Even then, because of his good nature, he took the gift, just to discover later that he didn’t know what to do with it. This gift, the Woman’s model, was like the fine sculpture he once got from a friend. It was beautiful, nice and well made, but it didn’t exactly fit in his living room. The Lady model was OK, but at this moment, it did not fit in his life.

That is probably why he started finding flaws on the Woman’s version. According to him, it was hard to understand how the Woman’s model worked. He did not realize that the instructions were so simple that he could have overcome the obstacles by using a little kindness and good intention. Obviously, the Woman was not an extension of him, and for that reason he was unable to guess what she needed and felt, but the model also had a very convenient feature called “Communication,” which allowed her to talk and express her feelings. But the young man was so busy trying to figure out the instructions by himself that he completely forgot to use this feature.

Quite often, the young man tried to troubleshoot the Woman’s model. He was using the wrong tools, though. Things like criticism, sarcasm and yelling caused the Woman’s Model to malfunction. Without knowing it, he slowly destroyed the feeling of love in the model, since he did not try hard enough to find the proper tools in His Heart Depot. If he had gone to the Heart Depot, he would have found exactly what he needed, but he preferred the comfort of no-action-at-all. That is why he caused the Final Short Circuit on the model. Tired and frustrated, he pushed the Lady away from him, into a cabinet, and went on with his business.

The Woman stayed for a while in the closet, crying in desolation. She felt the hurt of love. Fortunately, two things were still intact: her Integrity, Self-esteem and Dignity Kit, along with her Kit of Resilience. She made an effort, and used both kits. She understood that, if the relationship did not work, it wasn’t because she was defective.

The Woman finally recovered and got out of the closet, emerging even stronger and more beautiful than ever. She went back to work after the Holidays, early on a Tuesday. As her coworkers came to the office and greeted each other, they wondered if the management had hired a new employee. No, they had not. It was the Modern, Educated Professional Woman, sitting there, with her beautiful smile. They admired her new haircut, and how she had even lost some weight and how great she looked now. (The coworkers didn’t know that the Woman did not feel like eating much while she was in the closet).

Now the Modern, Educated Professional Woman has continued with her life and doesn’t even think of him (well, not that much). She has incorporated this experience into her cognition, which has made her even smarter, stronger and emotionally more intelligent. Instead of feeling weak and defeated, she is sure that she has learned from her mistakes and will not make them again. The Woman recognizes her story did have a happy ending, after all.

Image Credits: Microsoft.com
©Marie Santini 2009