The Loved One

Write a missing section of the novel, a journal entry cum suicide note for Aimee Thanatogenous, just after the Guru Brahmin has told her to 'take a high jump', but immediately before the section where the third person narrator tells us 'In Aimee's bathroom cupboard...lay the brown tube of barbiturates which is the staple of feminine repose....' and leads up to her suicide in Joyboy's workroom.

She felt rather than knew that somewhere in the warehouse of her psyche there was stored the accoutrements to accommodate her current needs, but the corners of the warehouse were dark and gloomy and seek as she might, she came away empty handed. What she was left with was paper and a pen which she took up in an absent way and started to write; words attempting to shape something that made sense of her world. She wrote:

I don't know what to do, I feel so confused. Talking to the Guru B… Mr. Slump as I now know to be his name, has only made my confusion worse, and now I have more questions that nobody will answer. I don't know what to feel anymore.

I was happy with Mr. Joyboy… he treated me well, and I had feelings for him, and then Dennis came along. He was wonderful. He was an artist like me and he put things, things that I could never figure out how to say, in the most beautiful way. Then I find out he's lied to me all along! He works in that disgusting Happier Hunting Ground. Everything I liked about him was stolen from someone else. I should have seen from the beginning that it wouldn't work, he's too English for me, and he was willing to just live off of my money! A good American man would be disgusted with himself for even having such thoughts. He didn't really ask me to marry him, he just demanded it. My friends have told me that men are meant to ask.

on the other hand is a real gentleman. He always sent me a smile, and treated me differently to how he treated others. He told me we work in unison, and how he can't stop himself when he hears the loved ones are on their way to me. He gives them a smile even when the waiting ones don't request it. It was such a wonderful gesture. I would have thought him to be the perfect man until I met his mother. She was very intimidating. I didn't expect such a successful and refined man to have a house of such poor quality and in such an area. I don't know what to expect from dates. I hear from others that they're meant to be nice. I suppose the food was ok, and to introduce me to his mother was an honour as the Guru Brahmin told me. Maybe I'm being unappreciative?

Everything was so much easier when I wasn't loved or liked by anyone. I feel that I upset Mr. Joyboy with my engagement to Dennis. The poems though, they always filled me with a warmth I can't describe. Now Dennis keeps pushing me, I found out about his lies and yet he still won't let me go. He even told me he is going to become a pastor, I find this unethical. How can he become a pastor when he pushed me to do things that shouldn't be done before marriage? He keeps telling me that I'm his, and how I promised to be his. How can I be his when the man I made that promise to, wasn't who I thought it was?

How could I fall for such different men? Mr. Joyboy compliments my work. He tells me what a talented artist I am, and helps me to become a better person. The Guru wrote to me about his taking me to his house, telling me that he was allowing me to see his vulnerable side; he said it shows me he's a good man that cares about me. He loves his mother, and took care of her when her close friend Sambo the parrot died. He even asked me to attend the funeral, as his mum doesn't know many people. What a good man. I truly thought I was lucky to be with such a man.

Now though I think I have been fooled by people on this Earth, by those I truly believed loved me, or at least what my friends have told me love is meant to be like. Dennis and his lies, his selfish English nature suggesting that I am the one that isn't being honest. He kept reminding me of my solemn promise to marry him. I felt unworthy of him and so happy that he'd chosen to be with me. Now I see how foolish I was. He even insulted Mr Joyboy, called him a 'sanctimonious pest' he was so disrespectful, calling him names, like Popjoy. He has no right to judge him.

Then there's Mr. Joyboy, who wanted more to help his mother with her parrot than come over to help his fiancé when I truly needed him. I can't help but wonder if he has been deceiving me too, but I've just been too blind to see it. When he found out about the poems that Dennis had written for me he appeared even more perfect than I already thought him to be. I truly was foolish to believe that I could be so lucky, that someday I could understand what love truly is. Now I question whether I'm still confusing what I feel, maybe I didn't love either of them. Maybe I'm still waiting for love to hit like the Guru told me.

There must be something wrong with me. The world just seems to be one big illusion. I'm living in a world of false images that I can't see through. Even the great Guru Brahmin isn't who I thought, but his advice has always been something I have trusted. He at least has been there to help me when nobody else would.

In the morning I'll be free. It's strange for the first time in my life I feel alive, I feel like I have no one depending on me. Nothing can faze me. I feel almost as though I'm floating. I wonder if Dennis will write a poem for me. Or if Mr. Joyboy will give me a smile? In this last night I wonder about my mother. Will she be waiting for me, or is she happily living in the East? I think that might be something I'll regret, never finding out what happened to her. I wonder if she's sober now.

It's time for me to go to bed. I hope tomorrows' a nice day, as Whispering Glades has always looked it's most magical in the sun.