tables.
Roy walks in the door, waits a minute, and is then shown to a booth by the hostess. He sits facing the door, pleased to note that there are only a handful of other diners—an elderly couple who are very obviously still in love, a young couple just as obviously on a first date, a single father with his pre-teen daughter, and a family of four skirting the edge of divorce. Roy determines these things with a few quick glances, using the deductive skills employed by mental health professionals, fictional detectives, and writers like himself.
Unlike many people their age, the elderly couple still have things to say to each other, rather than sitting in silence. More importantly, there is still contact between the two, be it their eyes or the touch of fingertip to the back of the other’s hand.
There is no touching between the young couple, although there is a lot of furtive eye contact. The air between them is absolutely brimming with nervous energy. Roy can hear it in their forced laughter, and their even more-forced attempts at small talk.
It is easy to see the genetic resemblance between the father and daughter. He wears no wedding ring, and desperately tries to make conversation with the girl, who is more interested in the conversation she’s having with someone else via text. She gives him short, clipped, one-word answers, saving the multi-syllable responses for whomever is on the other end of her phone. The man seems sad, and he also keeps checking his watch, seeing how much time they have left together.
And the family of four aren’t talking. Or rather, the kids are talking, but the mother and father don’t talk to each other. The children’s expressions are sad and pensive. The mother’s expression is grim. The father’s eye keeps wandering to the woman on the first date.
The other reason Roy waits to come to the restaurant until after the crowds have dispersed is because being around all those people makes him feel lonely. Unfortunately, delaying his arrival hasn’t helped today. He wants to go over to the elderly couple and tell them how envious he is of them and offer to pay for their meal. He wants to do the same for the young people on their first date. He wants to remind the divorced dad that he still has someone in his life, and he should be happy for that. And he wants to jerk the father of two out of his booth and smack some sense into him. He wants to remind each of them that it can all end at any second—that the world is nothing more than a monster that feeds on goodness and kindness and love, and that the beast grows hungrier by the day.
Roy doesn’t do any of these things. Instead, he pulls out his Kindle, turns it on, and picks up where he last left off. Today’s book is David Schow’s Havoc Swims Jaded . There’s a chance he may finish it before finishing his meal. If so, he’ll switch over to the latest by Greg Rucka or Weston Ochse. Roy usually reads four or five books a week, depending on his own deadlines. He’s never been much for television, and his DVD collection takes up only one single shelf. He prefers to read, and since he spends so much of his life alone, he has plenty of time for that.
He has plenty of time for writing, too, although for the last year, that has been a problem.
Roy has writer’s block, which is ironic since for most of his career, he has insisted that this malady doesn’t exist—that it is nothing more than an excuse lazy writers invent for not getting work done. But now, after twenty years and thirty books, Roy finds himself unable to write. He still goes through the motions every day. He sits down at his laptop and opens up a document file and types a few words, but that’s as far as he ever gets. He used to average five thousand words a day. Now he averages five. Roy finds himself distracted by trips to the coffee pot and trips to the bathroom; by social media and games and all the other things his phone contains; by music and the squirrels
Roy walks in the door, waits a minute, and is then shown to a booth by the hostess. He sits facing the door, pleased to note that there are only a handful of other diners—an elderly couple who are very obviously still in love, a young couple just as obviously on a first date, a single father with his pre-teen daughter, and a family of four skirting the edge of divorce. Roy determines these things with a few quick glances, using the deductive skills employed by mental health professionals, fictional detectives, and writers like himself.
Unlike many people their age, the elderly couple still have things to say to each other, rather than sitting in silence. More importantly, there is still contact between the two, be it their eyes or the touch of fingertip to the back of the other’s hand.
There is no touching between the young couple, although there is a lot of furtive eye contact. The air between them is absolutely brimming with nervous energy. Roy can hear it in their forced laughter, and their even more-forced attempts at small talk.
It is easy to see the genetic resemblance between the father and daughter. He wears no wedding ring, and desperately tries to make conversation with the girl, who is more interested in the conversation she’s having with someone else via text. She gives him short, clipped, one-word answers, saving the multi-syllable responses for whomever is on the other end of her phone. The man seems sad, and he also keeps checking his watch, seeing how much time they have left together.
And the family of four aren’t talking. Or rather, the kids are talking, but the mother and father don’t talk to each other. The children’s expressions are sad and pensive. The mother’s expression is grim. The father’s eye keeps wandering to the woman on the first date.
The other reason Roy waits to come to the restaurant until after the crowds have dispersed is because being around all those people makes him feel lonely. Unfortunately, delaying his arrival hasn’t helped today. He wants to go over to the elderly couple and tell them how envious he is of them and offer to pay for their meal. He wants to do the same for the young people on their first date. He wants to remind the divorced dad that he still has someone in his life, and he should be happy for that. And he wants to jerk the father of two out of his booth and smack some sense into him. He wants to remind each of them that it can all end at any second—that the world is nothing more than a monster that feeds on goodness and kindness and love, and that the beast grows hungrier by the day.
Roy doesn’t do any of these things. Instead, he pulls out his Kindle, turns it on, and picks up where he last left off. Today’s book is David Schow’s Havoc Swims Jaded . There’s a chance he may finish it before finishing his meal. If so, he’ll switch over to the latest by Greg Rucka or Weston Ochse. Roy usually reads four or five books a week, depending on his own deadlines. He’s never been much for television, and his DVD collection takes up only one single shelf. He prefers to read, and since he spends so much of his life alone, he has plenty of time for that.
He has plenty of time for writing, too, although for the last year, that has been a problem.
Roy has writer’s block, which is ironic since for most of his career, he has insisted that this malady doesn’t exist—that it is nothing more than an excuse lazy writers invent for not getting work done. But now, after twenty years and thirty books, Roy finds himself unable to write. He still goes through the motions every day. He sits down at his laptop and opens up a document file and types a few words, but that’s as far as he ever gets. He used to average five thousand words a day. Now he averages five. Roy finds himself distracted by trips to the coffee pot and trips to the bathroom; by social media and games and all the other things his phone contains; by music and the squirrels
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