A Psychotic Romance

I may write a few bits of poetry or sometimes put my abstract thoughts to words, but generally my creative output is in terms of stories or rather in their foetal state - plots. My mind churns out plots every now and then, sometimes interesting ones. Some are inspired from real life with characters possessing great amount of similarity to people I have actually met and interacted with, but then the story and it characters take a turn of their own...and in the final heady concoction one cannot distinguish fact from fiction.

So I am now going to narrate a plot that has just sometime back come to my mind. I shall attempt to narrate it in a crisp fashion as I have been accused, and rightly so, by someone close, as not being concise enough. As the title suggests the story is a romance between the lead characters...well anyway there are no other characters in this story for now :D

The lady - lets call her Planet (actually the name of a planet did occur to me, but I wud rather refer to her as Planet) - She is a born loner, and so she was even later among a sea of friends and acquaintances,...left much to her devices as a child, with little care from her parents...she felt it was because of herself and started despising herself...she started looking out for reassurance.

Fortunately she discovered Internet and chatting at the right time. Talking to others online (especially anonymously) and forgetting herself was her way of dealing with her problem. Added to this she came across literature on Psychological disorders and delved deeply into them...slowly she started identifying with some of the cases and somewhere as many people lose sight between reality and imagination...she started thinking that she had a split self within like some of the cases she read about...she imagined two selves primarily. One of them was an adventorous, outgoing, even prankful personality, while the other was a brooding, pessimistic, depressed self and she acted as almost two entirely different persons when either of these selves sought to predominate.

One day as usual during her online sojourns, she came across a rather interesting profile of a guy and pinged him. She waited for a day, the next day he replied back. She found the response oddly interesting and sent her own remarks...lo behold, the guy replied again and it was even more intriguing...so on they went trading messages back and forth till they decided that they were interesting enough to explore more about each other.

Thereafter they chatted almost everyday for hours on end. Planet found the guy to be an intriguing personality...he was as different from her as chalk and cheese...he tended to look at life in a more optimistic picture, even though (as he revealed to her) as a child he had a similar tough time at home...he had great belief in God and Destiny, unlike Planet.

He had an impressive personality - extremely intelligent, knowledgeable and with clear cut ambitions. He also had great deal of courage and confidence. Planet was in complete awe of him. He was as normal as she was abnormal!!

He had an acutely perceptive nature, he could instinctively understand what she thought, he used to second guess her and most of the times accurately. She started spending more time with him and through him she started talking to herself...he became a medium rather for her different selves to communicate with each other.

She found it difficult in his presence to be two entirely different personalities...conversations with him were so long, intense and probing that she was her different selves at the same time. It took not long for her to understand that she was never two or more selves at all. The reasons this happened because of these conversations was that this was a very unconscious process...it was never intended to have the kind of effect it had on her. Now she found that she was more comfortable with who she was. It was not entirely due to this relationship...already in the last few years she had become more confident of herself, especially her go-getter self...but now she was more at peace...she had dispelled her own imagination of various selves. It was a great feeling for her...of course she considered it all due to her online friend ..now we got to name him (as it is that has been unnaturally delayed)..so lets name him - Meteor, ah its somewhat related to Planet and yet contrasts Planet and he was very much like a Meteor.

Meteor - Planet had been able to surmise little about him...the thing was most of their conversations centred around Planet as Planet wanted to talk about herself and Meteor wanted to know more about Planet, though he never shied away from talking about himself. But these were occassional and Planet in her preoccupation with herself did not really pay much attention to the person that Meteor revealed himself to be.

From what she surmised Meteor seemed as mercurial as a meteor...he tended to be emotional and expressively so...his emotional barometer showed rapid high and low movements, but irrespective of that he never receeded within himself. He expressed both his high and low states to her. She also learnt that he was easily hurt.

Now once Planet was more comfortable about her identity, she had no inclination to delve more into these probing conversations...they reminded her of her earlier dichotomy, which made her pretty uncomfortable. She was thankful to Meteor for what he did for her, even if unintentionally and he was really the first person to take such a great interest in her life. She felt overwhelmed at times. But she also sensed that Meteor was becoming more possessive of her, he was demanding more of her time. Actually it was not really more, it was just the same as earlier, but Planet had moved on. With her more confident self, she wanted to take on her problems with renewed vigor and optimism. She looked forward to the future and Meteor made her look behind by his constant attempts to delve into her psyche. She did not have time for that, neither the inclination.

Another complication was that behind Meteor's possessiveness and emotional nature, she detected certain sentiments directed towards her. And she was even more uncomfortable with that. She always had dreams and imaginations about the person she would eventually commit herself to - Meteor though impressive was certainly not that man - and besides she was in no hurry to do commit herself. She was young and had a life of early youth to look forward to, see the world, meet different people and maybe one day find her right choice. While Meteor was an interesting person, she could never think of him in that manner, she did not feel a basic attraction to him. She was also perplexed that he could be attracted to her as he claimed. Anyway all these factors put together made her to keep her distance from Meteor.

Initially Meteor did not understand this at all. He showered her with his usual attention, mails, smses, and what not. The usual downpour kept on all the while making Planet even more uncomfortable. The distance seemed to have made him mad. Planet thought that this was bad, but worse was yet to come...

What she had overlooked in those initial days of her conversations with Meteor was the abnormal time he used to spend with her. She wanted to talk and did not notice that here was a man who had work to do and yet leaving all that he was only listening to her. His questions were very probing...to many people it could have been uncomfortable...but since she was facing a problem, this actually came as a bitter medicine to her disease. He also used to do all sorts of snooping around (with her knowledge), connect various data that she gave him, and used this to good effect in the conversations - his sudden insights using various titbits was crucial for her in finding links within herself. She naturally looked at the result, but forgot to see the cause of it...and then there was his ultra-possessive nature, his almost maniacal interference....maniacal?? A dark foreboding swept her - the man she thought of as totally normal and amazingly great was nothing but a maniac....he really had a psychological disorder, though it was so completely masked...

That is the romance about this plot...it started with a woman who imagined herself having a psychological disorder relying on a totally amazing and normal man...in the process she becomes "cured" only to find that the man she relied on is a psychotic himself...thats why this is "A Psychotic Romance" ...now where do we go forward from here,,,

One thread of thought suggests that Planet resolves to help the man. She returns him the favor and they have long conversations, but about Meteor himself. This was comparatively comfortable as Planet was not required to talk about herself. She really found it fascinating to know more about Meteor. As she learns more she finds herself drawn to that person. Despite his mental state, he had shown tremendous resolve...he had never become a split self...but yet was badly affected by what he had undergone. Gradually he comes out of his disorder and by that time Planet has totally fallen for him. But when he comes out, he finds that he is not really attracted to Planet...

Another thread suggests that Planet makes it clear to Meteor that they have to separate...Meteor descends into further psychosis, which makes him malevolent and he in turn stalks and troubles Planet....he makes her life a hell....she is not able to form relationships with anybody...of course in this eventually Meteor will have to be neutralized.

If you can think of any other possibilities...do let me know :)