I do better with multiple choice questions

by Edwaert Collier
Indianapolis Museum of Art
This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.

Daily post prompt: Trick Questions

A Pulitzer-winning reporter is writing an in-depth piece – about you. What are the three questions you really hope she doesn’t ask you?

1)  The question I would dread most would be: “A swimming pool has 2 inlet pipes. One fills the pool in 4 hours, the other in 6 hours. The outlet pipe empties the pool in 5 hours.

 Once the outlet pipe was left open when the pool was being filled. In how many hours was the pool full?”

 Firstly, I would stop listening to the reporter as soon as I hear “pool” followed by  “two inlets” and secondly, I would start blabbering and giggling, and try to get away with a cute escapist answer, only to inspire the journalist to come up with a possible title for the article: “How smart is she?”

 2)  What is your zodiac sign?

Oh man, I hate zodiac sings! I am left helpless whenever anyone wants to carry on a conversation about my personality based on which day of the year I was born. I hope she does not ask me that. Do people really get Pulitzer prizes with such questions?

 3)      Could our photographer take your picture playing football/ basketball/ volleyball?

 No!!! I hate team sports and despise any activity involving a ball. Those round bouncy things either land on my head or my bum! I would rather keep the little bit of dignity left from my childhood PE classes, thank you.

I am sure, if the reporter avoids these three questions along with any other queries pertaining to my true personality, I might come across in her article as a charismatic, smart and attractive person.

Meaning of Life and Man

I have spent years chasing the tail of my darkness. I cannot catch my past, like a dog trying to get hold of its tail, seeing its tip, I see the tail wiggling, making fun of me, but whenever I am about to get hold of it, whenever I am close to catching it, understanding the mystery, bringing some light to the darkness, it goes further away, mocking me, making a fool of me…

So I carry on further through days and nights…

I have met many people on my way, some were old some were young, some were slow, some were fast, but I have never spent enough time at one place to make real friends, to share a drink, a moment that could last forever, a moment immortalized like a painting in memory.

I have felt closer to some, though, and more distant from others. I have had some children, here and there but never stayed behind to watch them survive. I could not have stayed… I had a tail of darkness to chase… a world of wonders to figure out. Did I wish I could stay?… I am not sure… This life of wandering, hours, days, weeks of wandering, hoping to find out what life had in store for me consumed me, made me restless… I believed I could figure it all out only if I kept on, and saw what was hidden in the dark.

I had no one to ask about my past, to direct my questions… I never knew my mother or father… I never knew where they had met, how they had decided to conceive me… Probably they had acted on an impulse, a raw urge to copulate rather than a thoroughly designed plan for the future. Much like the way I came to be a parent, I assume. Probably, they did not brood much over it, and followed their instincts, their inner drive to be close to someone, to feel fluid with another.

Probably I followed in their foosteps without even knowing them, and most probably my children are no different. Probably, my past is nothing but a vicious cycle, a ferris wheel that returns to its starting point, sooner or later and over and over…

I wonder how similar my children have grown to be, how much a part they are of this cycle… I wonder if they are on an endless quest for answers… An endless quest to understand why they are the way they are… Why they do what they do… Who they are… I wonder if they ever wonder about me… I wonder if they feel abandoned like me, or accept it as part of life and move on. Moving on endlessly, slowly…

But I am certain, soon I will find an answer to all my questions, soon I will know why this darkness haunts me, why I cannot stop moving, why I cannot break out of it, why I am alive, and what my existence holds for the world, what it means to-

 CRACK! SQUASH!

Without even bothering to look at the snail and its philosophical quest he had just obliterated under his foot, the man walked on counting the money he had earned gambling.

The first line of this week’s Speakeasy challenege was to write a piece of fiction of 750 words or less starting with “I have spent years chasing the tail of my darkness.” and making a reference to Paul Cezanne’s painting the Card Players.