by Michael Yaworsky

Nasrin was in her room getting ready for bed when she heard Lisa come in and make her usual late-evening noises in the vestibule and then withdraw to her bedroom. When she didn’t hear anything for a while after that she got curious; Lisa usually noodled around the apartment at night, even if it was only to snack or watch TV, and she always at least said good night if Nasrin was still up. So she went down the hall to have a look.

Finding Lisa’s door partly open, she peeked in. Lisa was lying on her back on the bed with her fingers laced behind her head, staring up at the ceiling. Nasrin inched the door open a little wider to make her presence known, and when Lisa made eye contact, asked, “Hey, anything up? You okay?”

*                        *                             *

Here’s a little background to help you out as to what’s going on here. Lisa and Nasrin shared a small but nice apartment in Boston, Back Bay. They hadn’t known each other long, but now in their second year as housemates they were starting to become pretty close friends. They were certainly good roommates: reasonably accommodating, paid their share of the expenses, kept the place clean, introduced each other to their friends, etc. Nasrin worked in human resources doing personnel training, team dynamics, skills clarification, and such. With the occasional exception it was a nine-to-five gig. Lisa tended bar at a lounge at Logan International Airport, helped a friend with a catering business, and spent what remaining time she had trying to be a writer, so her comings and goings were all over the clock.

The crux of what Nasrin suspected might be preoccupying Lisa right now had to do with that last part of that job description, the writer part. Although Lisa was generally an upbeat, reasonably social person, lately she’d been struggling with her writing, and the tension had spilled over into her personal life. Nasrin’s suspicion was that Lisa felt stuck, or blocked, or whatever writers called the difficulty they sometimes encountered in producing or completing their work, and it was affecting both her output and her mood. Nasrin believed Lisa had talent: prolific imagination, clean style, ear for dialogue, encyclopedic vocabulary, expressiveness that could verge on the lyrical. She also could be a workhorse: once when the catering business needed advertising brochures, something that didn’t exactly call for showcasing one’s creativity, Lisa had gotten them done to the owner’s complete satisfaction, and on time. But now Nasrin would come home many an evening to find Lisa brooding over this or that bit of writing, or worse, refusing to acknowledge that anything was wrong at all, claiming she was “just tired” or “in a weird mood from work.” Nasrin didn’t buy it. Whatever its cause, this funk was turning into a liability for Lisa’s writing, and wasn’t doing wonders for the mood in the apartment either.

Nasrin looked over at Lisa’s supine form and contemplated the larger picture. She wanted to support her roommate but it would have to be in a positive way, by providing encouragement, acting as a sounding board, or even, if invited, reviewing Lisa’s drafts. The two did in fact have frequent discussions – well, “discussions” is too lofty a term, let’s just say they hadconversations – albeit sometimes spirited ones – about Lisa’s writing, but the last thing she wanted was to be a nag or a backseat driver. But maybe they were at a point where some deeper delving would be a good thing. Maybe some gentle intervention would give Lisa the spark she needed to get her projects up to the standards she imposed on herself. Maybe some probing and prompting, even amateur probing and prompting, would be worth it if they propelled Lisa forward in her writing, if only just a little.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Well, she couldn’t be sure any of this would help, but she could at least try.

*                            *                                  *

“Are you okay?” she repeated. Lisa responded with a noncommittal shrug, which Nasrin took to mean yes I’m all right, no I don’t feel like talking. Nasrin speculated that that was just cover. She suspected that Lisa inwardly yearned to share what was on her mind but wasn’t sure she’d find Nasrin receptive, especially at this hour. So she continued to linger in the doorway, wearing her best open-faced expression, and sure enough a second later Lisa did respond, startling Nasrin with an outburst that was as vehement as it was sudden.

“What are we doing??  What am I  doing!?!  What was I thinking??”

Nasrin was so stunned she almost couldn’t get her question out. “Uh, about what?”

“About this whole thing!”

“This . . . what  whole thing?”

“This whole writing thing! We talk about it like it’s the most important thing in the world,” Lisa said. “You’re nice to be involved, and I appreciate that… but again, so what? I do some writing. Big deal. It doesn’t add to civilization. There’s no social benefit. And I don’t know if it’s helped me get any better than if I’d never given it a minute’s thought. I’m certainly not doing anybody else any good.”

Nasrin reacted instinctively. “Now hold on,” she said, “what do you mean ‘so what’? So you’re not saving the world. Nobody said you had to. But you’re doing something. Something constructive.” She was shocked to find Lisa so negative, especially as Nasrin had just praised her for the last story she’d recently completed. “And it’s something that’s been valued since humans became humans. Don’t dump on it just because there’s so many other accomplishments that keep civilization going. Of course there’s all those things! They’re what we do to survive. They’re the bare minimum. But the bare minimum isn’t the only standard. It’s not the one thing everything gets judged by. There’s lots of other things that are important.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t ‘yeah but’ me, bub. Look at all the things it gives people when you write: pleasure and relaxation. Entertainment. Joy. The satisfaction, even if it’s only vicarious, of being the hero or the survivor of some big mortal danger. At the very least a way to decompress and recharge your batteries. That’s not nothing.”

“But—”

“Stories keep us connected. They create cultural touch-points we can all relate to that help us feel part of the larger community.”

“But I—”

“Reading stories makes people healthier – that’s been proven. And it primes the pump for people to go out and exercise their own imaginations. Are you seriously trying to tell me that Shakespeare is inconsequential? Or Mark Twain? Or Dostoevsky? People are still trying to get their heads around how brilliant those guys were, and it’s already hundreds of years since they wrote.”

Lisa tried to squeeze a word in but Nasrin waved her off again.

“Stories are the chronicles of who we are and how we got here. They help us decide where to go next. There’s truth in literature, even when it’s fiction. So story-telling isn’t directly related to day-to-day survival? So what! A lot of things aren’t. Movies, art, theater, sports…. MUSIC!!  You’re telling me those aren’t important just because they don’t put food on the table? Or a roof over our heads? You want to dismiss the whole Renaissance just because we can’t eat it or wear it? Come on, Leese! These things have been essential ever since people crawled out of the caves! So if you can do one of them, and do it well, like you can, that’s something you should shout from the rooftops! I would think you guys who do these things would realize this more than anybody else.

“And that’s not even to think what it does for you. You’re the one who creates this stuff. Doesn’t that do something to you? Don’t these things give you a sense of accomplishment, pride of parentage? It’s like giving birth to something that didn’t exist until you created it . . . out of nothing. Isn’t expressing yourself – putting things out there, connecting – isn’t that satisfying? I know it’s satisfying when I  do it and I’m not even in the same league as you!”                                                           

Lisa was still silent.

“What brought this on anyway?” Nasrin asked in a more placatory tone.

The answer came back almost in a whisper. “I stopped at the library today. Between shifts. I saw all those books, stacks and stacks of them, ones I’ve read, ones I want to read, and I thought…. I’m a poser. All those authors out there, all that great literature, and I’m just a poser. And sometimes I act like, ‘oh, it’s so important, I’m doing such a valuable thing, blah blah blah,’ when it’s really just . . . inconsequential. I’m a little nothing.”

That last part nearly broke Nasrin’s heart. She spread her palms out as if to ask, where is this coming from? “First of all,” she said, “some of those other authors might be posers, did’ya ever think of tha— wait, check that, I’m not gonna call anybody a poser; but maybe they’re not any better than you are. They just happen to be in print while you aren’t. Yet. And I’m guessing a lot of them have doubts about their stuff too.

“Second, you’re not a poser. You’re a doer. You’re a tryer. And in most cases, according to me, you succeed. And that’s who gets to make the determination: the reader. The listener. And that’s who I am. I’m the reader. I’m the listener.”

But Lisa evidently still had doubts. “So after the library,” she continued, “back at the kitchen, I was doing the pots and pans—”

“Don’t the newer people do that? You have seniority.”

“I volunteered. It gives you time to think. You know, the repetitiveness, rubbing and scrubbing…. and I got this feeling that I’m wasting my time, doing something that’s not worth my while. Not worth anybody’s while.”

“Okay wait a minute,” Nasrin said firmly, “you’re not shortchanging anybody, right? Letting anybody down, squandering the family paycheck?” Lisa shook her head meekly. “You’re not letting the mortgage fall behind. You’re not going into debt to feed your ego. You’re working. You’re earning. You even save a little. You’re generous. I mean, with your time as well as your money. So you have every damn right to do what you’re doing. Aren’t we all more valuable than what we do for a living? It’s your free time, Lisa. Look at the things other people do with their free time. That’s for them, this is for you. What you do is as worthwhile as what they do. If not more. You have every right. And it’s not even neutral, what you do, it’s a net positive.”

Lisa went quiet again.                                                                                                                                       

“Plus,” Nasrin said, “plus….  you’re good.

“When you write,” she continued after a short silence, “do you want to say things no one’s said before? Or things that others may have said, you just want to do it better?”

“I don’t know,” Lisa said. “Maybe I just want to say things that express me.”

Once again Nasrin kept mum. It seemed to be an effective way of drawing Lisa out. (Communicating by staying quiet; who knew!)

“I like writing the stuff in the middle.”

Well that was pretty ambiguous. 

“Explain.”

“Well, I don’t want to do that cloying, platitudes, ultra-feel-good stuff you see a lot of, and which is pretty easy to churn out. And I know I do sometimes. But at the other extreme, it seems like the only thing that sells these days, and wins all the accolades, is that jaded, cynical, over-sophisticated, slathered-in-irony New Yorker style. I mean, that’s all well and good, and don’t think for a minute I’m comparing myself to any of those super-good writers who really know what they’re doing. But that can’t be all there is; we’ve talked about this. That can’t be the only voice. And it’s not my voice. My voice is somewhere in the middle. Where most people live. We’re not filled with angst and baying at the moon every waking moment. We don’t have time for that. We have to make a living. We have jobs, families, friends. We get tired. We need down time as much as we need to grope around for answers.

“There’s a lot of real stuff about real people that I want to say. Even if it’s only everyday stuff. Everyday stuff makes up about ninety-nine percent of what humans do. But sometimes ordinary people have extraordinary experiences, or do amazing things. If I can make people see something ordinary from an angle they never saw before, put a different spin on it, that’s what I’d like to do. Or maybe say some everyday thing in a unique or quirky way, get wheels turning inside people’s heads. That’d be pretty sweet. Or sometimes I might just want to say something silly or clever or even stupid just to make people laugh when they read it.” Turning aside so as not to meet Nasrin’s gaze she added quietly, “If there is anybody reading it.” Then, “I guess what I really want is for my voice to be heard. Or if not heard, at least be out there, available to beheard. Nobody has to read it. Nobody’s obligated. That’s fair. It’s up to each individual. I just want it to be out there.”

Nasrin processed this. She felt proud of Lisa. She felt other emotions too, ones she couldn’t articulate: admiration? Definitely. Affection? For sure. Empathy, solicitude, optimism? Well, she may not have been able to put names to them all, but she knew they were all out there, and they were all positive. Overall she was glad she’d poked her head into Lisa’s room.    

*                                 *                               *                                                                                                

She looked over now and saw Lisa’s eyelids beginning to flutter. She’d had that long day at work, bothjobs, and now her emotions had to be ebbing after what she’d just put herself through. So Nasrin judged it best to let her sleep, if that’s where she was heading. After all, she’d just gone all the way from explosive, to exhausted (and all while in the same position –on her back with her hands behind her head!! how can people sleep like that?!  Nasrin marveled) and the adrenaline rush had to be all but gone now.

In any event, unlikely or not, slumber had indeed come for Lisa, and soon would come for Nasrin as well. They both slept peacefully ’til morning, when Nasrin got up, got ready for work, per her usual routine, and headed out the door; and Lisa got up, got ready for work per her usual routine, and was heading for the door except for some reason she felt unusually energetic, drawn by a bright, bristling sort of confidence, toward her laptop, where she threw down a few fresh ideas before finally allowing herself to head out the door. Then she smiled. And things slowly started to fall back into balance in the little apartment in Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Michael J. Yaworsky is a retired lawyer and legal editor who lives in Rochester’s 19^th Ward with his family.

He wishes to thank his sister Jean, an author who writes under the names J.Y. Harris and Jean Louise, for suggesting the title.