shadowplay Posted October 25, 2007 Posted October 25, 2007 I read an interesting short story today by Shirley Jackson called "The Daemon Lover" that reminded me of some of the guy flaking tales I've heard on LS. For some reason it really struck a chord with me, and left me feeling a bit glum this evening. It begins with this 34 year old woman waking up on the morning of her wedding to prepare herself. She fusses over the dress she's going to wear (she only has two less than ideal options hanging in her closet) and finally chooses a floral print that is pretty but, as she recognizes with regret, "too young." She finnicks over her makeup and is sure not to overdo it lest her groom suspect she's disguising her age. She lives alone in a small, dingy apartment. As the story progresses we learn she was proposed to the night before and hasn't known her fiance for more than a week. But we don't learn much about him or his personality, aside from the implication that he seems to be younger and more of a "catch" than she is. The woman expects him to arrive at ten o'clock that morning so around that time she sits down on her couch and waits for him. An hour passes, he doesn't show. She accidentally falls asleep and wakes up to find it's a quarter to one. The apartment is still empty. She doesn't have his phone number, so she walks a few blocks to the address where he told her that he lives (she's never visited before). The superintendent answers the door and says no one by that name lives in the building, but the superintendent's wife says a man that fits his description was living on the third floor briefly. She goes to the third floor and is told by the people there that he moved out this morning. Leaving the building, she heads in the direction of her apartment, but along the way she asks store clerks and people on the street if they saw a man of his vague description (tall, young, wearing a blue suit) passing by this morning. Several people say they did see such a man carrying flowers down the street at around that time. Finally, nearing the end of her journey, she is directed toward an apartment building that an old man saw her possible fiance disappear into. A boy on the street says he saw the man go up to the top floor. The apartment is dingy and dark inside, and she finds a crumpled florist receipt in the front hall. She makes the climb to the top floor and listens at his door. She hears muffled, low voices and what sounds like far away laughter. When she knocks the voices seem to stop. She repeatedly knocks but no one answers. She comes back day after day, night after night, sometimes hearing the voices and laughter, but as much as she knocks nobody ever opens the door. What I found interesting about the story is the ambiguity about whether her lover really exists at all. It's never made clear whether the man that others saw was even him because her description of what he looks like is so vague, and nobody seems to recognize his name when she gives it. Also, the sinister title suggests that something supernatural might be going on. The fact that he vanishes without a trace makes her feel like she's crazy and maybe she is -- it's never made clear. I can identify with this feeling because I've been in situations before where I've been abandoned by someone suddenly or imagined that I was being abandoned. You start to question your own sanity because it seems inexplicable that somebody you thought you were so close to could suddenly leave you without a trace. Well, I guess this thread really had no point, but I hope you enjoyed the story.
Ocean-Blue Posted October 25, 2007 Posted October 25, 2007 What an eerie story! Could it be that it was all in her head. That there was never really a man in the first place?
Author shadowplay Posted October 25, 2007 Author Posted October 25, 2007 What an eerie story! Could it be that it was all in her head. That there was never really a man in the first place? Yeah, that seems to be one possibility.
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