This one takes place in a diner, and there is a train involved.A creative exercise by Nick Willete and Justin Liberman
The station is down the street a little, not even a block away from where you sit by yourself in a booth in the diner. The brilliant sun setting behind the elevated platform straddling the thinly-trafficked street shines directly through the window in front of you and pours yellowly on the table, --a little dazzling but oddly comforting. It reminds you of the first sandcastle you ever built. You recall the suniness of that childhood day, the beach, a long, endlessly bright strand, the satisfying texture of wet sand under your fingers.
A waitress puts a white porcelain cup of coffee in front of you. You do that routine you have with diner coffee, one you don’t even have to think about anymore but which brings a moment of peace as you perform it, a buoyant pleasure rising through you like a slightly electric balloon. Gently, carefully peeling back the paper lid of a miniature container of cream, you nevertheless get a drop or two on your thumbnail—happens every time. Half the cream goes in the cup; you aren’t that wild about a lot of cream. Two packets of sugar follow and the mixture whirls briefly of its own accord, the cream slowly billowing up through the now chocolate-colored coffee. Dipping the spoon (easily the ten-thousandth gripped thus, between thumb and forefinger) into the cup; you stir thoroughly. The metal tinks, comfortingly on the porcelain. This is a vital part of the ritual. You remove the spoon, leaving a whirlpool to spin centripetally, hypnotically. You watch the slowly decelerating whirl as you firmly shake the spoon downwards to free a few clinging drops from it before laying it, concave-side down, on a napkin. When you look at your own reflection in the bowl of a spoon, you appear upside down. You prefer to keep things rightside up, even if only while drinking a cup of coffee in a mid-afternoon diner near a train station. The whirlpool slows and stops. But just then, a train rumbles through the station and the calmed surface of the stirred coffee is ruffled once more, as if a pebble of sound has been dropped into its depths. In the few seconds it takes for the train to doppler itself into oblivion, you wonder about the people traveling on it—the variegated city travelers you know so well.
You are sure that there is a gaggle of businessmen dressed in their finest traveling suits wishing and wondering of all those sales that lye ahead in tomorrow’s afternoon. Topeka, Omaha, Fresno- thousands of miles apart, marked by millions of sales in between. You hope for that wide-eyed young man- with a paperback in his hands and a knapsack on his back, watching the passing America with a sense of awe. Maybe he has brown hair and looks like you when you were his age. He could be your son- had your son not die at childbirth. And there is the woman. Long hair of Raven dark and soft gentle hands. She thumbs her cameo necklace that hangs from her long neck as she looks out the window at nothing in particular. You would stake that she is traveling to visit her sick mother or perhaps on her way to reunite with a long lost love. There is peacefulness to her- and it is comforting like your coffee.
Another train snakes its way into the station, screeching to a metallic halt, bringing you back to the diner. The cup of coffee has been warming your hand for a few long moments of thought, and now you hook a finger through the handle, taking a first sip. Your ritual has paid off—it’s perfect, just how you like it.
As the train pulls out of the station, the sun winking in and out of sight between the cars and silhouetting the figures of the passengers within each one, you call the waitress over and ask what types of pie are on the menu today.
For a quick dose of relative musing I ask you the artist to allow yourself the time to write creatively once a week. With no pressure or real expectations try your hand at creative writing for it’s liberation and it’s ability to make you feel good. Writing short stories are a great way to get the creative “fix” we are all jonesing after. It allows you to explore avenues and routes in your head that you may be afraid of or unwilling to investigate for it’s lack of development. Fear not what you can write down on paper and throw away. It’s all part of the process.
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