Story a Day

It was a cloudy summer day. The world outside Barney’s window was washed in grays. Some kids were playing with a kickball in the street, but they seemed unreal, a projection from the clouds. 

Smells from pollenating plants, ripe fruit, and garbage cans wafted up to his apartment. It was a simple apartment: cot in the corner, desk by the window, bookcase full of magazines, toilet, shower, kitchen.

Barney sat at the desk, staring at a tall stack of notes. He opened a word processing program. He was supposed to write the article by tomorrow. So far, the words weren’t coming. He needed to think of a way to start.

He started going through the neat pile of notes, organizing them into piles. He had a pile of notes on his subject’s mother, a pile on the father, a pile on short films made in adolescence, a pile on later work. The piece would be biography mixed with criticism, of course. But chronological order was so boring. Couldn’t he think of a more interesting format?

The phone rang. Its vibrations made it walk across the desk, nearing the ring from a water glass. Barney answered it.

“Hello?”

“Barney. Sorry to call when you’re working, but I’m in the area. Want to take a break?”

“Sure. Emilio’s?”

“Sure.”

Barney hung up the phone. He went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water from the tap. He drank the water, and then he put on his coat and shoes. Then he headed outside.

When he closed the apartment door behind him, he always twisted the knob to double-check that it was locked. It was a habit left over from his college days, when his dorm-mates would prank anyone who left their doors open when they left for class. As habits went, it was just as well; it was better to be careful, anyway.

Barney and Turner always met at Emilio’s. It was a relationship built on a coffee shop. It was just one of those things. Barney’s place was too small, he felt, to invite people over. And Turner lived clear across town, only coming to Barney’s area now and then for errands. Neither man had ever invited the other over for a beer. You might think of friendships as being built on visiting one another’s houses, but that’s not how it was with Barney and Turner.

Barney set his sunglasses and hat on Turner’s table.

“Hey man, how’s it going?”

“Hey Barn, how’s the writing?”

“It’s slow this morning. I have all my notes, but I need to work out an article by tomorrow afternoon. What about you, how are the kids?”

“Most of them are fine. I had to send one to a specialist this morning, but it was nothing major. Ear-throat thing. I’m thinking I’ll get pie today, what about you?”

“I think I’m just feeling coffee.”

And so there they sat, a writer and a pediatrician, reading the pie list at Emilio’s while kids played kickball in the street.

image: jakobtischler on flickr