October 22, 2019
Story idea: 1st person: A writer, egoist failure, an observer, still.
Subject: Narrator writes at a table in a grocery store Starbucks every morning. Everyday, he sees an older woman at the same table. She arrives earlier than him always and has never left before him. She always has a stack of books. Typically, four or five. Post-its of various sizes and colors protrude from the pages. She spends her morning reading and makes notes in a variety of colored notebooks.
The narrator begins to take notes about the subject: their smell – whiffs of sweat saturated with five spice and cigarette smoke, their attire – sweat pants that appear pulled over another pair judging by the way they bulk about the knees and crotch, a puffy vest over sweaters always burgundy or purple, and a blue toque from the tug-boat union. Days later, the narrator notices the backpack, a canvas rice sack fitted to an aluminum frame.
The book titles are in Mandarin. The narrator sits directly across from the person and copies the characters as best he can. He uses an online translation service. No clear success. Their eyes meet, he thinks. Occasionally, people visit her: police officers, well-dressed professionals, municipal staff of Burnaby. All Chinese. They speak, and the narrator does distinguish this – Mandarin or Cantonese. Occasionally, documents in envelopes are passed.
Tension: the initial mystery of the subject, the incongruity of detail, will sustain a reader’s attention, but then? This is to say that the narrator’s interest in the subject doesn’t make a story. The story must be about something. Something could be the nature of the narrator’s attention or the subject themselves. I favor the former; but, the former cloaked in the latter.
(Is this a story about racism? Current trends carry all thoughts towards that place.)
