Times Ten

The first time he didn’t know what was important. He waited for the first one to ask the questions and answered them, clarifying when she didn’t understand.

The next time he wrote it all out and sat there, watching the second one as she read it, watching her reaction to each word.

The next time he performed what he had written. Still watching the third one’s reaction beyond the stage he had constructed for the occasion.

The next time he added a soundtrack to the performance, and burned a cd for the fourth one, so that when she listened to it, she would remember the performance.

By the fifth time he was getting tired of it. So he filmed it.

He watched the dvd and cuddled with the sixth one. He just gave copies to the seventh and eighth ones.

He gave his last copy to the ninth one. He didn’t realize until he had already given it to her and was too ashamed to ask for it back. So instead, he asked to watch it with her, and secretly setup a camera behind them to record it off the television screen. When he watched this copy later, the image quality was so poor that he could barely make out what was happening on the screen. Not only that, but he realized the ninth one had talked through the whole thing, critiquing his choice of music, his acting ability, his poor dialogue writing, the amateur scenery... He kept the copy but didn’t show it to anyone.

He shrugged at the tenth one and didn’t say anything so she left.