03 Jun A Short Story: Progress

*This story is entirely a work of fiction.*

She walked into the room carrying a few of my notebooks and said to me, “So… I was reading through some of the notebooks you sent me… I really like this line, ‘the mind’s power is short-lived without experience.’ Jesus, Avi, why don’t you post this type of stuff? You have so much, literally thousands of pieces of writing, it’s going to take me months to read through all of it…”

I slightly laughed and then said, “You can have all of them if you’d like, doesn’t matter to me. Because, you see, I could probably fill an entire notebook everyday if I wanted to.”

She smiled and said, “Really? I mean, I don’t think you realize, that if you do make it to the top, the pinnacle, these are going to be worth an insane amount of money one day… especially if you keep up your writing pace.”

Her comment made me think for a minute before I responded with, “Yeah. They’re all yours… keep them safe. I think it’ll cause me to write even more now. Anyways, shorty, why were you watching my new movie so many times?”

She laughed and replied quickly, “Oh come on… it’s not a movie and I only listened to your new comic book story like five times…”

I smiled and then said, “Shorty, why was you so interested in listening to my movie so many times?”

She blushed and looked away. She diverted her attention to reading some more of my notebooks and then abruptly said, “Oh yeah… so you should know, there’s some guy whose trying to take jabs at you…”

I stopped writing on my notepad for a moment, looked over at her and said, “Nice… I’m surprised he didn’t have his team of writers with him; you know, one for the melody, one for the cadences, one for the lyrics, one that finds samples to get cleared… you mean that guy, right?”

She responded with an affirmative tone of voice, “Yeah… that’s the guy.”

I then continued writing in my notepad while saying, “How pleasant of him, but I really do not get concerned over people who have absolutely zero artistic talent. I don’t even think we’re in the same realm, if you know what I mean.”

She laughed and then said, “Yeah I’d have to agree. So what are you working on?”

I quickly responded, “Shorty, why are you so interested in what I’m working on?”

She rolled her eyes for an obvious extended period of time and then said, “Why are you always so difficult?”

I chuckled and then said, “Well I’m going to take the next few weeks and just write as much as I can… real writing; short stories, poetry, anecdotes and some guitar solos. Then I’ll start working on my first album that’s firmly music and not spoken word. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how to market all of my stuff…”

She sweetened up her tone of voice and said, “I think you’ll make it… when you do, do you plan on doing any concerts?”

Her question surprised me a bit so I said, “I actually never thought about that before. It’d probably be like 2-3 concerts a year, but each ‘concert’ would be different. People wouldn’t really know what to expect… one time might be a play, one time might be some spoken word, one time might be a movie, one time might be my music, one time might even be where I just make a song from scratch in front of the audience. I really don’t want to put myself into any type of category.”

She really smiled after I said that and then she said, “How are you so confident? You just kind of set these outrageous artistic goals for yourself…”

I moved in closer to her so I could look deeply into her eyes and then I said, “The pain that I’ve experienced in my life keeps me motivated and confident. Some of that pain is from me always being the smartest person in the room and always being blocked out or suppressed because of it, you know what I mean?”

She blushed for some reason, I’m not sure why, maybe she liked how I said that to her, I wasn’t sure, but she responded with, “For having such a brilliant mind, you’re actually a lot more calm and aware than I thought. It’s also amazing how much you appreciate and value the simple things.”

I quickly responded, “Short, why are you so interested in me all of a sudden?”

She laughed again, she has a nice laugh and then she said, “Maybe I am a little bit interested in you…”

I smiled and said, “So, shorty, are you interested in me taking you on a date, or what?”