Two Writers (A Sketch)

Friendship cast a long shadow that spanned across the pages of fiction, penetrating the secret truths of two writers who shared the intimacy of words.

Writing had become a chore for the first friend. It was a near impossibility for the second. The former, subjected to scrutiny for past confessions, did not want to publish again. His readers and critics identified with themselves in his words, and he was indeed guilty in the past of these offenses. But as such passions ebbed, he again wanted to write, to focus on the idea of experience. But his readers could not see the difference between condemnation and understanding, and while he now knew, he did not want to face more of their questions.

The latter, could not even find the time to write. The practical world surrounded her: the demands of a career, wife, and mother. She found, under these limitations, that it was nearly impossible to write what the unique voices in her head spoke, and it was equally difficult to continually glance over her shoulder, worrying who might be reading, judging, and disapproving.

Yet they fostered their kinship of words, one that bore its fruit in understanding. While his writing may not have inspired her, his emotional style did. She could find electricity in his passion, in his anger, and in his outlandish literary creations. For though she may not have loved his prose, she did his mental acuity.

He adored her writing: the intricacies of her plots, and the subtlety of her prose. She had command of her premise, of the action, and her character's spoke in realistic voices.

But it was more than just a mutual respect for each others prose. Reading was a portal to their innermost thoughts, and as friends, that is what meant most of all.

So writing was the bridge they crossed, hoping to meet halfway; one part removed from his fantasy, one part from her reality. And after many years, they still found a way to meet on that bridge.

It is not surprising then, that they often wrote about bridges. But they approached them differently. A bridge, to her, was a place to jump, or an obstacle that could not be crossed. To him, a bridge was a structure that took away happiness, but his characters never jumped into the icy waters below, no, his got revenge by destroyed those bridges.

And that was a major difference between the two: her words were often somber, but his struck out with aggression. Her characters would gloss over emotions, burying them deep beneath their consciousness. His screamed until they could be heard or until they had given up caring. But each person's writing was predominately based on one thing: a sense that nothing ever worked.

But their cynicism was different. Though his pessimism seemed more visceral, hers went far deeper. He used broad strokes to define emotional flaws. They were sometimes comical, but were almost always detached. His characters screamed because they felt pain, they moaned and bemoaned, wanting to smash. It was only later that his characters felt remorse.

But her's drew inward. They took their experiences and submerged them. They would show signs of pain, but no more, their stoicism progressed until one day, it over-flowed and they stood on that bridge, with a sense of freedom, ready to leap. Her characters died to ease the pain. His eccentrics extinguished themselves in attempts to destroy it -- their martyrdom against emotional indifference.

So the two built a bridge between them. A structure that no one jumped from, one that neither attempted to destroy. A bridge with free access, one that would never span anything but the mutual interests that flowed beneath them. It was a bridge built on many things: love, anger, respect, fear, hope and loyalty. It was a bridge built to last. There was not a faulty truss within its span. They made sure of that when they built it above their reciprocal hopes and dreams.