The Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.6: The Literary Break-Up (Updated)
We’re accepting entries until noon tomorrow. Read the entries by two of our regular winners, Momelia and johnbristol6.
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While trying to avoid the latest findings in the Ramgen Revilla murder case we ran headlong into the news that John Lloyd Cruz had broken up with his girlfriend. Which got us to wondering: How do you break up with a famous boyfriend or girlfriend?
Well what about your literary boyfriend or girlfriend?
This being the Weekly LitWit Challenge, we would write them a letter.
So in this week’s challenge you’re going to break up with your literary lover. Raskolnikov, Clarissa, Bruce Wayne, Bathsheba Everdene, Gimli son of Gloin (Gimli son of Gloin?), Morgan Le Fay, the Vicomte de Valmont…whoever they are, you’re through with them.
In 1,000 words or less, write a letter to your literary boyfriend or girlfriend declaring that you have fallen out of love with them and expelling them from your life. Cram it with juicy details, make us believe that your literary romance is real. (Edward, I can put up with your surliness but I cannot condone locking up your wife in the attic, I do not care how bonkers she is.) The most hysterical letter wins.
Post your letter in Comments by 12 noon on Sunday, 13 November 2011. The prize consists of two books:
The Guinness Book of World Records 2012 and The Best American Short Stories 2011.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 9th, 2011 at 06:00
No, wait, amendments are in order. Madame, if you can please delete that first submission and post this one instead? Thanks!
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To My Dearest Everhard,
It never occurred to me to just leave you in that forest to rust. But that was a surprising blessing until that bitch from Kansas came along. You know, you were stupid to go on that mission with an ax as opposed to an umbrella. I could have sent you off with one, but I had faith in your macho posturing ways, and it was faith well placed! Corrosion never crossed my mind! But it rained, and your oxidation was divine! It was the very comfort of my liver, the sunshine in my pockets, the very promise of peace in between my legs until little blondie came along and made you mobile.
Oh cheese it. It looks like you’ll have to stick with the plan all along. Remember how you promised me a heart that will reciprocate? You promised me a beating heart that will resonate with the harmonies of my, well, my undying love. You promised me a loving heart that will sing a duet with my affections. You promised me a heart that will validate your end of this relationship. You promised me a heart, and you believed it will be worth the adventure.
How very daft. I was just in it for the sex. And I hated it with the same livid passion as the East Witch has for falling houses. And that is why I’m writing you this.
You were always hard, sure, but it turns out that nothing beats real muscle all along. Tin is, well, scary when it penetrates. It’s scarier when it punctures. And that’s assuming that you know what you were doing in the sack. Your foreplay rusted way before you did in that forest. I’m sorry that you have to hear this now, but you are both a health hazard and a lousy fuc… fetish. Seriously, dude. I’m getting sick of the transmission fluid every time we do the kinky. And the fractures. And the smell of polish. And your pervy oil can sex toy.
I am now blaming myself for living in with somebody with a hard on in all the wrong places. Everywhere, for that matter, and it was a real drag to my hemorrhoids. Truth is, you weren’t much for anything. We had plenty of firewood, sure, but that won’t keep this lovebird in place.
I am mailing this letter, by a wish, to the General Postmaster of the Emerald City. And I hope this reaches you by the time you get your heart from the Wizard. You don’t know he’s a poser with this fog machine, and that is why I sent you off to him in the first place. Never mind that he gives you something as fake as his magic. Symbolic my ass; I honestly wanted you to have a heart all along.
This is because I’ve always wanted to break something in you. Which ought to serve you right for all the broken bones you gave me every time we do the missionary.
As Wasted as the Great Sandy Waste,
Me
P.S. Leave me alone. Don’t try to flying-monkey your way back to me. I also have a pair of those ruby slippers, and I know exactly how to use these babies.
November 10th, 2011 at 20:46
To the Insect Formerly Known as Gregor Samsa:
You are an insect now. Don’t expect me to still love you. Goodbye.
Valentina Novackova
November 10th, 2011 at 23:38
Dear Ada,
Habang binabasa mo ang sulat na ito ay marahil nakauwi na ako sa bahay namin. Gabi na kasi. Ako na rin ang nagsara ng parlor mo. ‘Yung customer mong tomboy, hindi na naman nagbayad sa pedicure. Gigripuhan daw ako ‘pag siningil ko siya. Andaming kalyo sa paa ng puta. Kasalukuyan akong nagyoyosi sa bintana habang nakikinig kay Adele. Nagpapaypay din ako kasi mainit ngayon. Tapos ipinagluluto ko ng midnight snack si tatay. Nagpa-piano rin ako ng Rachmaninov. Kung paano ako nakapagsusulat e hulaan mo na lang.
Sumulat ako sa iyo para sabihing hindi ko na kayang magtago sa lilim ng iyong kagandahan. Ang sabi nga ng now-defunct O-Town, I want it all, or nothing at all. Sa tuwing nilululon mo ang punyemas na bulalakaw na ‘yan, iniluluwa mo naman ako sa buhay mo. Masakit sa akin ang moda mong ito. Feeling mo ba, sobrang ganda mo talaga?
Alam kong hindi ka na mapapasaakin, kahit magcartwheel ako mula Taft hanggang Fairview. Hindi rin naman ako manhid, kaya ako na mismo ang magsasabi nito. I have two words for you, Ada. It’s all over. Ay naku, lumampas!
Anyway, sana masaya ka sa buhay mo ngayon, lalo na’t sikat ka na simula nung ma-MMFF ‘yang buhay mo. Mas maganda ka ng kaunti kay Zsa Zsa Padilla, to be fair. Pero sana maisip mo, na sa bawat dugyot na inililigtas mo, nawawala ang oras na dapat inilalaan mo para sa ating dalawa. Lagi mo na lang akong iniiwan sa ere. Sa sobrang bored ko, natuto na akong mag-DOTA, nagpaturo ako kay Didi. Level 24 na ako ngayon.
Andami kong isinakripisyo para sa iyo, Ada. Nagstop ako sa kolehiyo para lang turuan ka ng English, para maintindihan mo ang mga Amazonistas na ‘yan. Ako ang nagturo sa’yo na sabihan sila ng “Thou beslubbering, earth-vexing, unchin-snouted fustilarians!” sa tuwing makakasagupa mo sila. Dati rati, lagi kang naliligo sa sarili mong dugo sa tuwing kinakausap ka nila. Ngayon may pa-South Welsh South Welsh accent ka pang nalalaman.
Ako rin ang nagpakilala sa’yo kay Michel Foucault at Judith Butler. Naalala mo nung binabasahan kita ng History of Sexuality bago ka matulog gabi-gabi? Para naman may maisagot kang matino sa tuwing iniinterview ka ng TV 5 tungkol sa compulsory heteronormativity. Hindi ka na nila tinutuksong bobang bakla. Hindi naman sa ikinahihiya kita, pero dati akala ko ipinaglihi ka sa tanga.
Higit sa lahat Ada, pinilit kong mag-aral ng bekimon para sa’yo. Nagsugat ang dila ko, pero keri lang sa akin. Waley akirang keber sa mga hombreng umuokray kay atashi. Kembot lang girl, wiz ko silang winawafaz, dahil ang hombreng trulalu wititit nakikipagjumbagan sa mga purezang utrek. Ang besides, baketchi naman ako masa-Shaira Luna? Ineendeavor ko itey para sayochi, awaaaard.
Pero anong isinukli mo sa akin, Ada? Wala, lagi mo na lang akong iniindian. Sabi mo sa akin dati, magdate tayo minsan sa Cubao. Forty eight years kitang hinintay pero hindi ka dumating. Ang sabi mo iniligtas mo lang ‘yung tutang nalulunod sa ilog. Anak ng tuta naman, Ada. Okay wala na akong maisip na puns.
Tapos nung birthday ko, hindi mo man lang ako binati. Bahala ka na kung paano mo ipo-pronounce ‘yung huling salita. Dumalaw ako sa parlor na inaakalang babatiin mo ako pero sinabihan mo lang ako ng piss off kasi sumakit ang kamay mo sa pangungulot. Ni hindi ka man lang ngumiti sa akin. Akala mo kung sino kang nireregla.
Basta lagi mo lang tandaan Ada, once a upon a time, umibig ka sa akin. Hindi dahil sa sobrang gwapo ko, pero dahil tapat ako at totoo. Saktong cheesy lang, tapos may suplado effect ng kaunti. Pero we’re far apart now, ang laki na ng gap natin sa isa’t isa. Sinlaki ng bunganga ni Didi. Sana masaya ka d’yan sa buhay mo, at sana naiisip mo kahit napakaraming naggagandahang mga kababaihan sa buong kalawakan, sa’yo lang umikot ang mundo ko. :3
Nagmamahal ng sobra times 10 raised to the 87634578346589345th power,
Me
PS. Hindi naman ako bitter. Saktong Imbiernadette Sembrano lang.
November 12th, 2011 at 22:30
ADRIAN VEIDT MESSAGES ACTIONS
Adrian Veidt Monday 1:52am
Darling, why did you unfriend me? Was it an accident?
Adrian Veidt Monday 7:56am
You there?
Adrian Veidt Monday 8:13am
I know you’re there. You just posted two seconds ago a video of Justin Bieber getting hit on the head with a plastic bottle of water.
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 3:37pm
Hello? Come on. I’ve also been sending you text messages since yesterday, but you’re not replying. You haven’t been picking up your phone, either. What’s the matter?
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 9:27pm
You just posted pictures of Gaz Holgate on your wall! I know you’re there! Are you mad at me, hon?
Allan Carreon Tuesday 9:28pm
For someone who’s supposed to be the smartest man on the planet, you’re certainly not the brightest apple in the bushel. You know what you did.
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 9:30pm
No. What? What did I do?
Allan Carreon Tuesday 9:32pm
I suppose a giant vagina-looking squid monstrosity just magically appearing above New York City and wiping out half the population has nothing to do with you? I know what you’ve been doing down there in the Antarctic!
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 9:37pm
I did it for you…
Allan Carreon Tuesday 9:44pm
That is so not sick.
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 9:46pm
I told the gang it was to unite the world against a common threat, but really I wanted to show you I love you.
Allan Carreon Tuesday 9:53pm
Exactly how?
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 9:55pm
Vagina-looking squid monstrosities are my way of showing you the extent of my intelligence. You said you loved me for my brains. Come on, marry me.
Allan Carreon Tuesday 9:58pm
I think perhaps no, I will not marry a psychopathic megalomaniac. Especially since I wanted to get married in New York City, where they recently had that gay marriage thing approved.
Allan Carreon Tuesday 9:59pm
And by the way, I’m taking back custody of Bubastis. Expect to hear from my lawyer.
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 10:03pm
I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Promise. I’ll ask Osterman to turn back time. I suspect he could.
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 10:08pm
Hello?
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 10:11pm
You there?
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 10:13pm
Come on, I said I was sorry!
Adrian Veidt Tuesday 10:21pm
Hey, why can’t I see your Facebook wall anymore?
November 12th, 2011 at 22:34
PS Apologies for the weird formatting. I placed many spaces after the names to simulate right justification for the day/time, but when I posted, the day/time appeared beside the name. Guess the site or program auto-changes it…
November 12th, 2011 at 23:31
To Teleute, Death of the Endless
My most alluring Telly,
I wouldn’t be surprised if you already foresaw me writing this letter and leaving this in this table where I write it now. Here, in your realm. Or maybe not, whatever. That was the point. You never made me understand, even when I was here. Even when I was already snooping every nook and cranny to learn.
It was actually funny in the beginning. I still vividly remember how I was there, in the mountains of Cordillera, where I fell from the mountainside because a rock gave way, and you were there when I smashed my entire body into the rocky grounds of that mountain and my head and spine were shattered into bloody pulps. Or at least that is what I saw when you brought me up. I was thinking to myself: “Damn, Neil Gaiman must have really seen the Endless in one of those pot sessions.” I was face-to-face with you then, Death. And I was still surprised how smoking hot you really were, are, and will always be from the beginnings to the ends of realities.
You told me, “Was this entire lone-wolf routine until you die really worth it? Was it really something worth abandoning your stable career for? Was it really something worth abandoning your family, your friends, your girlfriend Angel for?” And I did tell you then: I wasn’t really alive, I felt I didn’t. I felt how everything I do, whether it was for myself or I was pretentiously deluding myself that it was for others, that everything was meaningless.
I was seeking Death, if only to release me from this mortal coil, this dreary, earthly existence. And you know, I never felt more alive than when I saw you standing before me. You told me you had to bring me to where my kind of dead reside. Then again, I really doubted I was going to enjoy it. So I said, “I don’t think I’d settle yet. I don’t think retirement will suit me. I think my life-work has just begun.”
“And what is it, presumptuous one?”, you smirked good-naturedly.
I declared, “I think I’d court you. I’d make you fall in love with me.”
To love Death, and to be loved by Death in return. What kind of madness, to say those words. Yet you laughed. Then, with all the shivering fear you could inspire in me, you whispered so gently, “Try it.”
I spent a good amount of centuries training myself in the arts of death-bringing, whether it be violent or subtle. Being an agent of Death, a psychopomp. Your brother Dream’s servants helped a lot in my learning the ropes. I never thought it would have been easy (of course, I never wanted easy). I would not say I enjoyed the job of being there to end people’s lives (or, more accurately, call them to end and rest), considering many of them think their lives stretch out on an endless vista. You remember how you told me you liked it even if it sounds so juvenile. That even if I am ending people’s lives, I should not forget life as if I was alive myself. That is why you go down and become a mortal every century. That I should not be like your emo, anal-retentive brother Dream.
And then, five hours ago, you told me these words. “Something changed. I think I wouldn’t be what I am without you by my side.” I don’t know what made you say, but it inspired something in me. Fear and trembling. I love you. I still do, right now. If I could only run to you right now and touch your face and run my fingers through your jet-black hair and the outline of the eye of Horus in your face, I would do it.
But it would make me cease to exist. I cannot touch Death without having things beyond my control. And perhaps that is what I feared most, and feared most to admit to you despite those moments we were supposed to bare everything to each other in each moment we had together. Even when you have not yet bestowed your love on me, I felt as if I have already been in the comforting embrace of eternal repose with you.
Perhaps your brooding brother was right, that Dream. “The price for getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted.” I wanted it, and now that I have it, it has lost its taste. Should your sister-brother know about this he/she/it would laugh herself witless.
I will still love you, as you have told me now, that you have begun to love me. All my life. But not together. I have realized it now. Now that you have desired me to be one with you, I will cease to be. That is how it is with you Endless. You would smother those you value with your very essence until they could no longer be separated from you. I don’t think I can ever handle that. I think I still am too much of a earthling for my own good. I still have my stupid reason and pride. So maybe I think this is how we should handle it. We both love each other, but I think we can never be together.
What will I do, as someone who has been among the Endless and yet will not rest? Maybe I will continue to wander planes and existences. I am practically abstract now, and I can manifest as much as I want. That I have to thank you for. And maybe your estranged brother Destruction can help me on this.
I might still indeed long for a life with you, my dear Death. But there is, still, life after Death.
Your stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse of a boyfriend for five hours,
Ambrose
November 13th, 2011 at 05:41
Dear Wife of Bath,
You and your daddy issues! You have so much daddy issues that there were times when I wake up at night from you singing “Teach me how to dougie, Teach me, Teach me”, while pointing at the picture of St Thomas Aquinas hanging behind the door of our bedroom. (And there I was, thinking you had hanged your favourite Icon from your age.) “It’s Iambic!” you wailed, and pounding the glass of water you held onto the table the night I brought that up. “Come on!” I stormed, because like any man, I get mad when my girlfriend’s mad, “This is what happens when you spend too much time with Medea, Lady Murasaki, and that Goddamned Eve!”, catching my breath. “Don’t tell me who not to hang out with! No husband’s goin’ to be my boss!”
There. Your emotions. You fickle bitch. Daddy didn’t say you’re beautiful enough, huh?—that you just want eeevery fucking man to take care of you! Else you’d go berserk! “You know the modern women, Mrs. Ramsay and Molly Bloom, right! They should be your friends!”, I retorted. “I told you a thousand times, they creep me out! They talk a lot. . .inside their heads! Plus, you know that Molly’s affair was true. Moron. ”, refusing to take any of my wisdom. “Pluz muh-ly’s aff-ehr wuz th-rooh. . .I’m sooooo sorry for not understanding Ulysses!”, I gasped. “Shut up. . . Rupert Birkin”, you said with a fading voice, and ending your statement with a chuckle. You won.
You are good with arguing with men, unless they’re naked. I have what you want. That is why I keep up with you. The Canterbury Tales was filed under Best Sex Ever in Penguin’s The Best Books Ever Written because of you. Remember the day Penguin informed us about that? You made me so proud that I may have screamed “Eat that Anais Nin!” But we both know that the bad times trump the good.
(Actually, you don’t. This is the sixth time in two years that I’m breaking up with you. You are the most clueless person I know. Remember the fifth time I tried? You sent me two-word texts from a number that my phone did not recognise, like “Bloody Mary”, and “The Terminator.” When I called to ask what the hell was happening, you explained that you’re trying to force yourself back to me the way the old hag in your tale ensnared the helpless knight—by telling the answer to what women really want. You made me think my life was in danger!)
With great sex comes great responsibility. Your emotional needs loiter in my life like uncaged animals. And you know how some animals do not wished to be touched. But when I had let them be, they claimed places in my life where they ate, slept, and bred.
Love is the opposite of toleration,
Dave
– –
( A week after I gave her the letter, a messenger from the office hands me an envelope with my name “Dave” handwritten in juicy, cursive letters at the back. I open the envelope and discover a reply )
Dearest Dave,
Stop acting like the famed protagonists of Dickens: akala mo kung sinong inapi. You want a repressed, honourable woman? Then go date Tashi from Possessing the Secret of Joy.
W. O. B.
November 13th, 2011 at 11:39
Dear Robbie,
I hope that as you are reading this letter you are lying on a stretcher, dying from an infected limb or something. Yes, I might have told you in the past how desperately I am in love with you, but allow me to tell you know that my love can only be equaled by the passionate hate I am feeling for you right now. I wish you were dead—like I am inside. They say that apathy is the direct opposite of love and not hate, but how could I ignore the fact that although you told me that you “loved” me, you never did show it. I know that you would try to pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about, so let me refresh your memory:
• you never did jump in the pond when I pretended I was drowning. I almost swallowed a bullfrog and nearly choked to death but you were too engrossed in the memories of a young blond bitch you knew once.
• you adopted that bullfrog and slept beside her every night, without any consideration of my past trauma.
• you never did pen me a nice letter like you wrote for C. I never got a cee, you, and tea. You called me a dee, eye, cee, kay, though.
• we never did it in the library. Or in dark dank rooms, because you said it reminded you of prison. You were visibly excited while in these places but refused my attentions.
• once, in half-sleep, you tried to choke me and called me Briony. Fully awake, you blamed me for being such a creepy, sneaky, and lying bitch.
I tried to understand that you were an insecure and lonely person, but you have some serious issues that I couldn’t really deal with. If I could rewrite our lives—no, your life (because you seem to have more issues than I do)—I would give us a happy ending. You, me, and perhaps a domesticated mammal, frolicking in the beach, the waves lapping at our bare feet. But I can’t. No one can do it for you, Robbie.
Still wishing for your death,
P