With Or Without You
My idea for the Creative Writing rotation was to create a disturbing short story from the perspective of a narrator who is obsessed with their best friend, Inesa. I chose the name Inesa as the meaning of it translates to ‘kind and innocent‘ showing how this character is oblivious to the narrator’s sinister obsession. The opening number ‘912151619’ represents the ages 9, 12, 15, 16 and 19 in a list, as the narrator proceeds to mention memories they deem precious from those ages. ‘Nine was our zero’ portrays how the narrator first met Inesa when they were nine years old, and how the first encounter, including an acorn, was childlike and playful. Three years later at the age of twelve, the narrator discusses how they would share things with Inesa. After six years at age fifteen, Inesa takes the narrator’s ‘sweetheart’, but the quote “the sugar you carried for Andrew was green” suggests that the narrator is under the impression that Inesa only did if out of jealousy, in the hopes that the obsession is mutual. During their seventh year at age sixteen it’s clear that the obsession has become dark and twisted as the narrator exclaims “you can not leave me”. After ten years at age nineteen, the narrator claims that at this point Inesa has ‘ruined’ their friendship. I didn’t make this clear as I wanted it to be open to interpretation, but at this point Inesa decided she no longer wanted to be friends with the narrator, but as the narrator feels as though they hold some sort of ownership over their friend, their unstable obsession led them to killing Inesa, as their friendship will last “With or without you, Inesa.” I chose to include some sort of time scale in order to show how the narrator’s obsessive mindset slowly graduates into becoming a sick and twisted fascination that eventually becomes dangerous, resulting in the death of the one the narrator loved most. Overall I really enjoyed this rotation as it pushed me to think outside of the box to create a creepy short story, thinking about many things such as language, form and structure.