urgh

I've got a norrible cold so I'm making banana bread as I can't afford to go and buy some comfort food. I'll let you know if it turns out as much of a mess as my cooking usually does.

So for one of my units we've been looking at set books and writing parodies of them. I was absolutely dreading it when the lecturer told us this but I've actually enjoyed writing some of them. I'm going to post the ones I like up here. In chronological order unless I get bored. The first one was a parody of Kafka's Metamorphosis and/or Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  I'm not entirely sure which mine is, but here we go:

Hannah stared at her face in the mirror and wondered why she no longer recognised it. After several hours of staring she turned away and began to get ready to go out. 

 On the night of David's grandparents' golden wedding anniversary there was a party. Hannah, David and David's new girlfriend were invited. Hannah and David had always misunderstood each other, which was the reason for their separation, but never as much as they misunderstood each other that night.

A short list of misinterpretations

 NAIL VARNISH

David had hardly ever seen Hannah wearing nail varnish so he assumed that the effort was for him, to show him that she was celebrating her freedom from him.

  To Hannah the wearing of nail varnish was a treat, as she hardly ever wore it, but also a trial because she could never paint the nails of her right hand neat enough. She saw this as evidence that she was not feminine enough to be a real woman. This time the treat outweighed the trial because she had never painted her nails red before. She liked the way it felt, despite the suffocated sensation that came from her fingertips.

THE SHIRT

Hannah had hardly ever seen David wearing a shirt so she assumed that he had never loved her. In two years he had worn a shirt for her only once, and now she imagined him dressing up every time he went out with the new girlfriend.

 David didn't like the black shirt because the sleeves were too tight and pinched his biceps. He had been forced to wear it because he wanted to drink, and his mother refused to drive him to and from the party unless he was wearing the shirt.

LITTLE BLACK DRESS  

  David thought that Hannah was wearing the little black dress to show him what he was missing. So did Hannah, until she saw the new girlfriend (who was fat, a fact that made Hannah sad and angry by turns, although not as angry as the size of the new girlfriend's breasts). When she saw her, Hannah realised that the little black dress was for the benefit of the new girlfriend. To show her, with a level of leg exposure that Hannah would have condemned on anyone else but justified by not wanting to waste the spray tan she used on her legs, just who she was following and what she had to live up to.

 The look on David's face when he saw the tanned expanse of Hannah's legs was merely a bonus.

THE SHOES

Hannah wore the scarlet heels because wearing flat shoes with a dress as short as her little black dress would make her legs look even shorter than they were. And they matched the red nail varnish, which she wore because she liked the way it felt.

 Although Hannah had never seen the new girlfriend before, David believed that the purpose of the scarlet heels was to bring the two girls closer in height so Hannah could look the new girlfriend in the eye. As well as further showing him what he was missing.

 Hannah had no intention of looking the new girlfriend in the eye. She was afraid that while she was looking in the eye she might also spit in it.  When the new girlfriend approached, Hannah went into the bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror. Despite the makeup she was wearing, she recognised the face in the mirror.

 She had a sudden but quiet revelation. The problem was not that her face was unfamiliar in her house; it was knowing where she was (in a new bathroom, in a new house) and trying to imagine her familiar face in that strange setting, without David. Her eyes had refused to register this thought and so she had stared into the mirror and not recognised her own face.

 Hannah didn't believe in makeup but she wore it that night as a shield between her face and David, a mask to prevent him from seeing her clearly.

 David didn't notice the makeup.            


Feel free to comment/critique/rave about how good it is :p
xXx