The day was bright and gay, but early on the wind was cool and skies were gray. The sun came out and lit the trees in rainbow hues, as if Old Man Winter might skip us this time around, the perennial pipe dream that springs eternal at the height of fall.
That full-mooned night he could not sleep, and found himself wandering down deserted streets. He ended up in front of a shop he'd never seen before, COFFEE AND CONVERSATION No Laptops Allowed. He entered and the man behind the counter struck up a lively conversation, or did he begin the palaver? At any rate he learned that the regular patrons were anyone under the sun, or rather the moon. They didn't open till sunset and religiously closed before dawn.
The customers would read or talk or play chess or scrabble or scribble furiously in their notebooks (not IPADs in this electronics free zone) or just sit around and while away the time sipping black, acrid coffees or light sweet lilting brews from every corner of the globe.
It was just the two of them for quite awhile until suddenly a lady came in out of the night. She nodded at the proprietor and sat at the counter and arranged her papers. As she settled down, the proprietor poured her a pungent, hotly steaming cup.
"Noel," said the proprietor, "This is, this is..."
"Louis," said the night wanderer who'd just preceded her, "Louis Archer."
"Nice meeting you. I'm Noel, Noel Woods."
"Don't let me stop you," he said, "Looks like you have a lot of work to do."
"Work? It's not work, not work at all, in fact, it's the absolute joy of my life."
"Is that right?"
"Want to read some?"
"Some what?"
"Poems, short stories, essays, and the like. I put out a bi-weekly newsletter," said Noel.
"Hmmm. What's it called?"
"The Porpoise."
"The Porpoise?"
"Yes. Our writers roam free and wide across the ocean of imagination!"
"And what are they looking for? Wait. Don't tell me. . . They're looking for their porpoise in life?"
"That's good. Very good! Why don't you write a piece for the next edition?'
"Naw. I'm not really a writer."
"Nonsense! Everyone is. Here take a look at this printout of our last edition."
He sat reading quietly for about a cup and half of the house medium blend. It was smooth and hot with a sweet brown taste. All the while she was rifling through her stack of submissions. Meanwhile, a few other insomniacs wandered in. Quite a motley crew. But that's another story, back to the one at hand.
He finally looked up and said, "I really like the one about the scruffy looking young couple with a baby on the way whose credit card didn't work at the supermarket checkout."
"Yes," said Noel. "And the cashier and the manager told the desperate looking youngsters to take the groceries home and come back with the money, knowing full well they might not, and they'd be stuck with the bill."
"I love the way the story sort of wraps around itself" he said.
"Come again?"
"The author was so moved by that stunning act of generosity, she says to the cashier, 'That was so beautiful.' And the cashier goes, 'Yes, they were' thinking not one whit of herself, but only of those she helped. The cashier and the manager were incredibly kind. Thus, the reader's own spirit of generosity begins to stir."
"You see! You are a writer. You think and feel just like a writer," said Noel.
"Anyone who read it would feel the same way," he countered.
"This edition of The Porpoise was about love, next month's is about -"
"But was it love? Or was it generosity?" he asked.
"Hmmm..."
"The supermarket story sort of segued smoothly into the tale about the elderly lady whose husband was in the Nursing Home," he said, "and how even though she was having a tough go of it herself, her whole life was built around helping him get through his pain and suffering."
"Yes, that was touching, wasn't it?" said Noel.
"And that story flowed directly into the tale of the Sisters who had spent all their lives, devoted their entire lives, to helping others," said Louis.
"They gave of themselves without thought of any recompense," she added.
"Yes. It started me thinking to myself, what happened to all those men and women who devoted their lives to giving me an education in my 12 years in parochial school? Where are they now? Have any of us come to see them in their closing years? Maybe I should. Yes, I should. . ." said Louis.
"Come to think of it," said Noel, "love and generosity are pretty similar, if not the same.
"Now take the essay about returning to an African city many years later," said Louis.
"Yes, she found that she still loved it nonetheless, despite its changes."
"Yes, but remember that key line?"
"Which one?" asked Noel.
"Here let me show you," he said searching through the newsletter.
"Ah, one of the most amazing and strange things in this multi-nation and multi-taste place are the flowers, the huge gardens, the swimming pools and luxury of the middle class - a luxury that in my country of origin applies only to the truly rich citizens. But not here! The middle class live in a happy, heavenly place environed and segregated by poor people. However, poverty is a status of relevancy. A poor person might be very rich within his community and even missing nothing, while a middle class man might be poor within his own, or feel so."
"Yes, she really touched a nerve there," said Noel.
"It reminds me of years, years ago," he reminisced, "I was way up in the mountains of Jamaica. I had been staying with family for a week, on vacation from college. And all of a sudden I looked around and noticed my surroundings, and what we were doing. We were all standing around, a group of men and boys, talking about something involving a tree, or was it a shack, by the side of the road. The road was not paved, just graveled, and some of the others wore tattered clothes. And it suddenly hit me! I am in the third world in the midst of poverty. But they didn't know that, and I didn't care. We were having so much fun. In fact, I almost did not come back. . ."
"Write about that!" Noel shouted.
"What?"
"Why don't you write about that moment in the hills of Jamaica?"
"But that's not a story."
"Anything is!"
"Anything?"
"Anything," said Noel, "any memory that resonates that hangs together in the mental cabinet of your recollections."
" 'Mental cabinet of my recollections', you are the writer, not me," protested Louis.
"Anything is grist for our mill," she insisted, "All you have to do is pick out some memory, some fancy, some desire, some pain, some joy, some -"
"But where do I start?"
"Start anywhere. Just sit back and look at life, 'Savor the moment,' like the gentleman in the story who could not get his ever-rushing young neighbor to just, just -"
"Smell the coffee!"
"Right," said Noel, "just pause in the rat race, and observe, and think."
"About what?"
"Whatever, for example, what happened to you today, tonight?"
"That's right," he mused. "You have a pen? Can I borrow a piece of paper?"
"Here's a pad."
"Thanks," he said taking a deep breath, pen poised in mid air. He turned to her and said, "The coffee in here smells great, doesn't it?"
(CREDITS: Unconditional Love in the Supermarket by Carole Kane, The Oddest Couple by Dave Kane, Sisters of St. Dominic: 30 Years at Our Lady of Fatima by Bob Hogan, and Savor the Flavor by Frank Clark. First paragraph inspired by October's Party by George Cooper.)