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Fantasy | Oct 27 2003

I have this fantasy about bad people. They’ve taken us captive and are probably going to rape you. I act totally passive, pretend to be terrified, whimper, look down a lot. I can’t risk telling you what I’m really up to, for fear you’d give it away. Looking into your eyes, I watch your idea of me collapse. You had believed me strong and brave, but here I am a pathetic coward. So it’s a double blow for you: first that the bad people have gotten us, and second that I’ve failed you.

Luckily my act works: one of the baddies lets down his guard for a second, and I spring into action, stomping on his foot. As he jerks forward at the waist, I kick him in the face. The motion is almost exactly like a punter punting a football, including the little skip beforehand with my off foot. Lots of blood goes flying and I grab his gun which he drops and shoot him in the side of the head, twice. This next part I’ve never filled in, but the upshot is that I kill the second baddie using some super-clever misdirection stuff. Then it’s over and I’m holding you and you’re really upset because I shot the first guy twice in the head when maybe I could have just shot him once in the leg or something. (I know all this without you having to say it.) I want to tell you that I had to do what I did because otherwise the first guy would have warned the second guy, only I know this won’t matter to you because you saw my face when I shot the first guy, you saw that animal part of me, the part that wanted to blow the fucker away, and it’s going to change how you think of me forever. This is the main thing. I save your life and kill the baddies but in doing so destroy any chance of you ever loving me.

Sometimes I try to end it differently, with no one dying and you being able to love me afterwards, but for whatever reason that always ends up feeling hackneyed. Even in my fantasies I prefer the sort of ending Bergman would write, despite what this means for me personally, or for the people I love, and even sometimes for all of humanity.