Until It's Too Late

I keep my coffee cup on the floor because I know I'll knock it over. I've been sequestered to the old schoolhouse desk, the working slab just bigger than a piece of paper, my necessary 15" laptop encompassing everything then some. She is sitting at a table for four, two dirty coffee cups about her, an identical glowing apple. It's a big table, and if I keep my arm on my desk's armrest I 1) develop cramps and 2) can't really even use the arm.

People die every day. They die crossing the street. They have brain aneurisms for no reason.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah you mind, or yeah..."

"Yeah. You can sit."

A rocky start but a start nonetheless! Doth not the weest babe eventually walk?

I pick up my jacket, my bag, my computer, my cup. My new wood chair is far more comfortable than the one attached to my desk and I wonder if this is an interesting topic of conversation.

Do you think these woods are different? You should sit in that seat over there to see what I mean.

I can do better. So I let ten minutes of silence go by.

"What are you working on?"

"Huh?" She pulls an earbud out from under her lovely grey beanie. "Oh. It's a grant."

"Oh, cool!" I say. "Very cool, yeah, very cool. What's the grant, what company do you work for?"

"A non-profit." Classic shutdown. I know them well.

"Awesome," and I go back to my Facebook. I'm wasting time, procrastinating, looking at Christmas gifts for my family because I know I will wait until it's too late.

"How about you?" She's asking me a question she's asking me a question.

"Screenplay, I'm a screenwriter." Why. Why did I just say that just now?

"Oh yeah? Written anything I've heard of?"

"No," I answer truthfully, "but I will," I finish with a lie.

And then it hits me. Why couldn't I write something? Who's to say a movie isn't inside me somewhere? We all have one story to tell, it's just a matter of finding it, willing it into existence. And then I think that perhaps my story hasn't happened yet. That whatever I have to tell is still somewhere down the line. That I have days and years and thousands of decisions left ahead of me before I get anywhere near it, before the prologue even hits. And I know she can read this on my face.

"You OK?" she asks, and as I'm about to answer I knock over my coffee.