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The Party to Whom I Am Speaking

I made up so many characters I’m inclined to stop the presses and host a party for them, acknowledging, as writer Anne Lamott observed, they are, “Characters that have selected you to be their typist.” I picture a crowd at the entrance of a banquet hall, picking up place cards with table assignments, drink tickets and a schema of food stations. Once everyone is seated around their tables, the tuxedo-clad MC directs them to gather before a wall map of my fictional locations. It is, I think, a huge map, beautifully illustrated by my nonfiction artist-husband. The fictional folks zero in on their storied locations where they each affix a little flag, indicating, “I am here.”

The Cuisine 

Once the map is brimming with flags, folks are free to wander off to the buffet stations or beverage bars, as is their want. Certain characters are partial to either barbecue, soul food or Caribbean fare, others New York deli. The make-your-own tortillas station is big among the guests, as is the curry bar. Many head for an Asian street vendor station of delicacies from China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Korea. Others lay bare the vegetarian platters and salad bowls.

A number of women prefer French cuisine; but that is surpassed by my pasta lovers. Two Kenyan brothers seem hurt about the absence of a station for them, as is an Iranian. I blame the omissions on my budget. There are a dozen coeds of my future world, for years relegated to swallowing three meals of nutrient drinks a day, who will eat anything. Favored party beverages range from flavored seltzer to smoothies to craft beer to wine to Tequila shots to Cosmopolitans. I see one bourbon drinker.

The Wild Creatures

The kids attack the ice cream bar and dessert station. Separate feeding areas, cordoned off for my fictional dogs, cats, rabbits, an owl, a mountain lion and horses, are soon swept clean. When the grazing ebbs, an M.C. asks the whole gang to again gather before the map, where a few short-story characters grumble about the number of flags flown at novel locations. Fred Smeal, a big wig from the future who insists on fixing his flags to three Future Schmaltz locations, commandeers the front row, blocking everyone's view. A dozen coeds from Future Schmaltz move off en masse to check their lip gloss in the Ladies Room.

The Glowing Remarks

I envision a ceremony with words of thanks all around, as what one might hear at a corporate year-end party.

“Thanks for coming alive,” I say. "Feels good to get this load off my mind."

“Thanks for all the typing,” politer characters murmur.

All this time, a pack of kids races around the banquet hall, playing tag. One little girl with French-braided hair leans against a wall, eating M&Ms and reading. Next to her, a five-year old boy stands on a chair, flicking the hall lights on and off. Old folks huddle and mutter, “She has to stop with the stories, or we’ll be forgotten.” The little girl looks up, alarmed. They have nothing to fear. Every character, no matter how obscure, is recorded in a corner of my brain and retrievable on command, map or no map.