Save as Many as You Ruin by Simon Van Booy.

It is a shorts story from 2007. It jumps a lot between present and past tense, which makes the story more exiting for the reader, it also starts in medias res.

The story is about Gerard who lives in Manhattan. Gerard want’s to stand out from the crowd, like when he wonders about his life is extraordinary (line 9). Or when he sees the mannequins who are still (line 28-30). Is maybe because he is afraid of ending up like them, still and boring, and not feel anything, like he does with his women. Gerard has an 8-year-old daughter, which he loves a lot. He do not let other women in that Lucy and Laurel, who is the only woman he ever loved, but when she got to close, he still found something else to ruin it, like Issy, who is Lucy’s mother. He cheated on Laurel with Issy.

Gerard mood get shown by the weather when he is thinking about Lucy, she is always warm, and when he is thinking about his life, and all the women there is snow, and when he gets Laurel again, there is candles in her apartment and when he sees her, he says the memories spill over him like a faucet left running (line 62.) like the snow is melting, like his cold and snowy heart. Issy was like fire to him, and he burns himself when he ruins his relationship whit Laurel, it is also why she is killed in a pool, because water kills fire.

The Title which is “Save as Many as You Ruin”, maybe means that he saved Lucy, when he ruined his relationship with Laurel, so when he left the love in his life, he got a new one, who is Lucy. And Issy is the one who ruins Laurel and Gerard’s relationship, and she also ruin Lucy when she leaves her, but Gerard saves her, by being there for him, so he saves her instead of Laurel.

The theme in the story is love, how hard it is for Gerard to let somebody in to his life, and let them love him. It is like he is afraid of it, and when he finally let somebody love him, like Laurel, he run away to ruin it.
The Contrast in the story is when he thinks of all the people who have been walking in the snow, and how all the footprints look alike, and they just disappeared, like his will, and he wont stand out like anybody else
Another contrast is “the Invisible man”, (line 41), who is invisible till he set footprints in the snow like everyone else, so he stands out, till he set footsteps, just like Gerard does in the start of the story, so Gerard do not feel like he stands out, like he wants to.

Issy is a dirty woman, who knows how to get the guys, she put perfume between her thighs, and always wears heels, and lies a lot, she is the evil. Where Laurel is the good who gives him wristwatch which most women does for their love ones, see also takes the thing with Issy very calm, and breaks it of in a e-mail. That is why Issy is the fire that goes through the snow and ruins everything and why she is killed by water.

The blizzard (line 47) symbolize the storm he feels inside, when he wants to be extraordinary, and he only set footprints like everybody else, and he feels torn because he have to be normal, and have a good job, so he can take care of little Lucy, that’s why he is torn by the normal, and being something else than everybody else. The blizzard is mentioned again on line 138, right after he has explained how torn he is between Laurel and Issy, so maybe the blizzard symbolize, a storm in his own emotions, and when he do not know which way to go, should it be the good or the evil.

The ending is very important for the whole story, like when he sees Lucy he thinks about her mother in the pool (line 163-164), like the cold snow in his heart have melted and become water, who kills the evil which is Issy. Lucy makes him feel home. Lucy also knows about all the women in Gerard’s life, because she already knows it is a women he is talking about, when Gerard says it is just a friend, she is also surprised when she gets to meet her, maybe because she never had before, with the others.
And when he thinks that Laurel will move in with them, cold water goes down his back(line198), like Issy and his bad past is leaving him, by melting snow, from his heart.