Cheating -- a 164-word story/brief

[Kyriakos]

Written for some contest (original -in greek- had 121 words; wrote it to take my mind of translating work, it isn't some intricate piece but you can read if you feel like it)

Cheating



When I was an elementary schooler I considered the next ten years – as many as my full age at the time – as going to last for so long that it was almost as if I was cheating; to be one to live for so extended a time. Even the memories I already had were many, and also intricate, so it seemed impressive how many more I was to have in times to come, and that I was to think of so much, and of things greatly more intricate; in analogy to how more intricate those I had at ten were to the ones of previous times. In that age no one is aware of the fact that ten years of childhood are, usually, richer in regards to changes witnessed, than thirty years of adult life. A child’s heart beats in a rhythm that urges the learning of new things. Of those new things which, in time, shall form into his later, and unvarying, living.

 

[Zkribbler]

I consider myself to be the anti-Kyriakos because we approach writing from the opposite directions. I embrace simplicity. Your writing is acrobatic and lyrical. I therefore would not be surprised if you decided the following observations and suggestions are of no use to you whatsoever.

I would rephrase as follows:

Cheating

At the age of ten, I considered the next ten years as going to last for so long that it was almost as if I were cheating. Time was so extended. The memories I already had were many and intricate, and so it seemed impressive how many more I was to have in times to come. I was still to think of so much, and my thoughts would be more intricate, especially in light of to how more intricate my thought were at ten were to the ones of previous times. At ten, no one is aware that ten years of childhood usually are richer to changes witnessed, than are thirty years of adult life. The rhythm of a child’s heart urges the learning of new things. And those new things form his later life.

Kyriakos, did I say what you are saying, only differently?

1) I know exactly what you mean by "elementary schooler" but I have never seen that phrase before.
2) "if I was cheating." Use of the word "if" triggers the need for the conditional tense: "if i were cheating."

 

[Kyriakos]

The impression was that time (10 years) would be something vast, but it was a false impression, cause a child doesn't know that after a point a person stops changing as rapidly - and later on the changes diminish all the more.
Re the text: i certainly am not good in translating my stuff in english (tbh i am not sure if your text says the absolute same)

 

[Ryika]

Cheating

When one person has a significant other and performs any type of intimate acts with another person.

"I caught my boyfriend cheating on me with another girl."

- Urban Dictionary

 

[Kyriakos]

Cheating

When one person has a significant other and performs any type of intimate acts with another person.

"I caught my boyfriend cheating on me with another girl."

- Urban Dictionary

That does indeed sound like a text resting on a book forgotten on a shelf, only taken out so as to examine stuff on account of other texts ^^

 

[Gori the Grey]

Your story works for me, Kyr, except maybe in the place where the ten-year-old thinks his ten-year-old thoughts are more "intricate" than the thoughts he had at earlier ages. It doesn't seem entirely plausible for a ten-year-old to yet be comparing the thoughts he's having at ten to the thoughts he had at an earlier age, and certainly not to use the word "intricate" to label the difference.

Now, of course, that insight is very crucial to the overall development of your story, so you can't take it out. But that's the one place where your story strained credibility a little, for me.

Any way, it's as good as any other flash-fiction (I think it's called) that I've seen.

 

[Kyriakos]

Your story works for me, Kyr, except maybe in the place where the ten-year-old thinks his ten-year-old thoughts are more "intricate" than the thoughts he had at earlier ages. It doesn't seem entirely plausible for a ten-year-old to yet be comparing the thoughts he's having at ten to the thoughts he had at an earlier age, and certainly not to use the word "intricate" to label the difference.

Now, of course, that insight is very crucial to the overall development of your story, so you can't take it out. But that's the one place where your story strained credibility a little, for me.

Any way, it's as good as any other flash-fiction (I think it's called) that I've seen.

Glad you liked it. I wrote it to get my mind off some negative thing at the time, not as something of note ^^ That said, it is autobiographical, i did think in such a way - including this specific thought- by 8 or 9. Infact i have an ocean of memories (of thoughts) from mid elementary to mid highschool, cause i was near-purely cerebral at the time.
You may recall a similar note by Poe, in his story about the double (William Wilson iirc)

 

[Gori the Grey]

Well that's why I said "for me." I pretty much don't remember how my mind worked back when I was 51, let alone when I was ten, let alone did my ten-year-old self remember what my five-year-old self thought like.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well that's why I said "for me." I pretty much don't remember how my mind worked back when I was 51, let alone when I was ten, let alone did my ten-year-old self remember what my five-year-old self thought like.

Oh i did. I even recall comparing specific stuff from 5 and 10.
Ultimately it was misleading, cause - much like in the flash fiction piece- i was not aware of the qualitative change between childhood and adulthood, despite having in mind a qualitative change between elementary and pre-school.

 

[Hygro]

It doesn't seem entirely plausible for a ten-year-old to yet be comparing the thoughts he's having at ten to the thoughts he had at an earlier age, and certainly not to use the word "intricate" to label the difference.

.... what?

 

[Lexicus]

I can't remember whether I knew that word at ten. I probably did but I spent a lot of time reading.

 

[Hygro]

My best defense of Gori's post is that I too might not have picked "intricate", as well as that at that age I would have thoughts about how I could articulate ideas that when I was younger I could not articulate. Which would suggest I believed in, perhaps, the intricacies of my younger thoughts as well.

But I definitely thought about my thoughts in relation to my previous thoughts at 10.

 

[Lexicus]

But I definitely thought about my thoughts in relation to my previous thoughts at 10.

I definitely didn't do that. At least, I don't think I did. I feel like I only started metacognition at like 15 or 16.

 

[Hygro]

What was that like? I can't remember a change, but if it wasn't always, it happened for me not later than preschool.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't really know, my inability to answer the question is why I feel like it only started around my mid-teens.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, in many respects i was actually more involved in thinking in the period from 8 to 15, than any later period, including my uni years (which were rather full of thinking as well). Certainly far more than now, for example.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I literally cannot call into my present mind my mode-of-thinking from any earlier period of my life. I know full well that I did not drop out of my mother's womb with the MacCarthy-worthy mind I presently possess. In other words, I am certain I must have thought in less "intricate" modes at earlier periods of my life, but that's just a matter of theoretical assent to an undeniable proposition rather than any felt experience of a difference between my present thoughts and any earlier thoughts. Don't know what it is, but there you have it. But it sounds as though Lex is closer to me and Hygro closer to Kyr. So maybe there are two distinct ways of having minds.

 

[Takhisis]

I want the 121-word version!

 

[Kyriakos]

I want the 121-word version!

"
Όταν ήμουν στο δημοτικό θεωρούσα πως τα επόμενα δέκα χρόνια – άλλη τόση η ηλικία μου – θα διαρκούσαν τόσο πολύ που σχεδόν ήταν σαν να έκλεβα τόσο που θα ζούσα. Οι αναμνήσεις που είχα ήδη ήταν πολλές, και σύνθετες, και μου φαινόταν εντυπωσιακό πόσες θα έχω, και πόσα θα σκεφτώ, και πόσο θα ήταν πιο σύνθετα τα μελλοντικά όπως αντίστοιχα ήταν πιο σύνθετα όσα είχα στα δέκα μου από εκείνα των περασμένων χρόνων. Κανείς δεν γνωρίζει σε εκείνη την ηλικία πως δέκα χρόνια παιδικής ζωής είναι συνήθως πιο πλούσια σε αλλαγές από τριάντα της ενήλικης.
Η καρδιά του παιδιού κτυπά με ρυθμό που το καλεί να μάθει νέα πράγματα. Εκείνα τα νέα που, τελικά, θα γίνουν η κατοπινή και σταθερή του ζωή.
"

 

[Hrothbern]

I consider myself to be the anti-Kyriakos because we approach writing from the opposite directions. I embrace simplicity. Your writing is acrobatic and lyrical. I therefore would not be surprised if you decided the following observations and suggestions are of no use to you whatsoever.

@Kyriakos ,
Is Greek language by cultural nature not much more lyrical than English ?
and inviting for precision ?

If I compare Dutch to Flemish, there is such a difference.
Basic Dutch plain, but allowing for an enormous amount of double dutch.
Flemish inviting for almost baroque use in literature.

Oh i did. I even recall comparing specific stuff from 5 and 10.

That is I think remarkable.
I did not mind at all who I was or what I thought about myself up to I was perhaps 20 or so.... to focussed on what was at hand and happy with the horizon that lay ahead of me.
I do remember from when I was 8-10 some moments where I wondered where I was related to other people.
And talking about "who I was" started as a gadget as part of talking with girls, but mostly I talked about other things. Thinking, reflecting on myself followed in the wake of that.