First Date

“So what do you like to do?” Curtis’ date asks from across the restaurant table.

He glances up from the menu and smirks. “I’m a writer.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Like, blogs or—”

“No.”

“No?”

“Fiction.” He sets the menu down and stretches his fingers, then reclines in the stiff chair with his hands splayed behind his head. “I make worlds,” he says. “I’m something of a god, ya know.”

“Oh…”

“I make anyone I want, and I can make them do anything I want.”

“Hmm.”

“I control time, the weather, diseases, war—life. Everything. You are in the presence of a god right now, baby.” Curtis rests his palms on the table as he leans in. Ten inches from her face, he whispers with flourish, “a god.”

He stays there, smiling and with curled eyebrows. His date’s pupils limp side to side; her conjured smile dissolves the longer he stays.

“Cool…” she says.

Satisfied, Curtis returns to his reclined position—the chair creaking, even above the rabble of the restaurant, as his weight shifts. He nods. Cool, indeed. Forsooth.

“So, um… have you… have you published anything?”

“Not yet.”

“…”

“Yeah. I just have a lot of ideas brewing, ya know? I work on one here, another there, and before you know it, in a few years time, I’ll have an entire collection published within a single year. People will be surprised at how fast I write, but,” he chuckles and winks to her, “we know the truth, don’t we?”

“The truth?”

“Yeah…” he says with a smile and far-off gaze.

“… Okay.”

“The truth that I actually took a long time to write them, but then they’ll all get published within one year of each other, so—”

“Right, right. I think I got it.”

“Yeah…”

His date lifts up her menu but sets it down not a second later once Curtis starts again.

“I have, like, four or six—maybe five novels in the works right now.”

“Mm.”

“Yeah…”

She starts to raise her menu agai—

“Maybe thirty, forty… like thirty short stories. Most of them aren’t done. A few of them are, but a lot of them are mainly concepts. They’re good practice, ya know, but I’m more into the big leagues. Besides—”

His date sighs then focuses on the menu.

“—I’ve tried the whole rigmarole for submitting shorter pieces, but,” he chuckles, “but that’s just not my style.”

“…”

“You see, Martin—”

“It’s May.”

“Huh?”

“My name is May.”

“… Oh, that’s cool.” He smiles and lifts his head. “Like the month.”

“Did you call me Martin?”

“Anyway, anyway. No one reads any of those journals or magazines that you submit to— well, no one but writers looking to submit their own work, and where’s the fun in that? What legacy does that get you? But anyway, Martin—”

“It’s May. Stop calling me Martin.”

“Martin? Oh, yeah, that’s a character I’m writing—it’s for a story about an elevator (har-har, it’s more entertaining than it sounds) but anyway… yeah, so the magazines and journals, they don’t pay much at all and no one reads them, so why submit, ya know? I used to—”

May sets her menu down. With a motherly tone, she says, “Curtis.”

“—I used to spend hours formatting my stories and editing them, and don’t even get me started—”

“Curtis.”

“—started on the time it takes just to find a place to submit to. Yeesh!”

“Curtis,” she says sterner.

“Same goes for novellas, too (I have about 6 or 3 in the works), but not a lot of people will read them unless—”

“CURTIS.”

“—unless you publish them traditionally, but then you already have to be established for that, so I’m gonna wait until I publish my other—”

May grabs his head, one hand under his jaw and the other on top of his skull, and pinches it shut. His eyes widen; his eyebrows furrow.

“STOP TALKING ABOUT WRITING, PLEASE.”

After a brief moment, she releases him and composes herself while she regains her breath. Curtis looks to her confused. Eventually, she clears her throat, faces him head on and smiles.

“Let’s try this again, okay?”

“… Okay?”

“My name’s May,” she says slowly and steadily. “I’m your date today. We are on a date—together. It’s a mutual occasion. Okay? Mutual. So you tell me something about yourself (just a little bit), then I tell you something about me, then we go back and forth. Okay? We’re just here to learn about each other. Okay? Does that make sense?”

“Oh… yeah, yeah it’s like a first chapter.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I get it. You gotta have a hook, right? So I hook you, then you hook me, then we keep turning the pages if all goes well.”

“Um…”

“Right?”

“… Sure, whatever.”

“Cool, cool, cool. I’m really good at hooks, actually. I started this one novella about a hamster with, uh, hold on.” He pulls out his phone and begins tapping and scrolling on it frantically. He glances to May briefly and mumbles, “Sorry, I have it somewhere,” as a bead of sweat trickles down his face. “Okay… yeah, alright here it is: ‘The hotdog smells funny… putrid… then it explodes.’” He snaps to her, his face exploding louder than the hotdog, splattering May with an overload of joy and pride.

“…”

“…”

“Okay,” May sets down. “So I’m a manager at Fashion America, Curtis.”

“I know? That’s where we met, remember?”

May blinks… then blinks. She stands up. “Okay, well I’m gonna leave.”

“Oh.”

“Good luck with your,” she waves an open hand around his face as if casting a spell, “with your… writing.”

“Thanks.”

She scooches her chair in then draws a wide sarcastic smile with a cheery tone to match, “And good luck on getting published some day!”

“Thanks!”

Her face relaxes to melted jelly as she turns and shrinks into the distance, a string of cartoonish grumbling rolls away with her decrescendoing footsteps. Curtis looks back to the open document on his phone and reads away. Various noises—all joyful or inquisitive—permeate through his closed lips as he scrolls...