by Steve Pease / Michael Chandos
This is a hurry-up-and-wait world. Waiting rooms are the archetype: bus stations, dentist, doctor, license plates, busy restaurants at lunchtime. People interested in the same few service points, coiled up or sitting on benches or plastic chairs. High humidity from anxious body heat. Confusion. Anger. Ethnic divides. Age issues. Attendants and staff limited by the System. Security gates at airports, ouch!
Wait a minute. Massive human diversity. External stressors making some people hyperactive, others zoning out.
We write stories, about humans. About real humans, not robots or idealized stereotypes. The more human your characters, the better. But they have to look real, act real. Where do you get experience in Humans? Why, in these unmade jigsaw piles of humans in waiting rooms, of course. Where else will you get them in this kind of lab experiment? Don't nap, read, stare blankly, or go to the bar. Look at all these fiction character guinea pigs! Don't be a zombie, use this DUH! time to your advantage, assuming your imagination is connected to your senses.
This is a typical Chicago airport gate. I know O'Hare Airport well. I worked in Colorado, but many of the Government offices I interfaced with were in the Washington DC area. Video teleconferences, of course, but there's nothing like being there, for side conversations, lunches, biz card trading, and chances to sell your opinion and to solicit commitments. O'Hare was the transfer point.
I write mystery, suspense and Science Fiction short stories. My stories are getting longer because there's more to write about. Novels are percolating. I was sitting in a three-hour layover in Chicago, trying to read a little, but it was lulling me to sleep. I got up for a stretch and commenced to people watch. There was Sully Sullenberger (landed the airliner in Long Island sound) quietly waiting for the flight to board.
I was sitting in an alcove that serviced gates to four Heavies, big planes ready to board hundreds of humans. I looked at the lines. Passengers holding all sorts of carry-ons, businessmen, soldiers, kids. Mom & Pop on vacation. My vision transformed them from sweaty humans in Chicago to passengers boarding orbital shuttles, suborbital to India and Japan, and orbital shuttles to the Moon. It all made sense now. There even was a lady in a colorful sari obviously rocketing to Dehli. All the languages!
The scene is a loop in my head still, with smells, noise, sights. I'll use it in a future story, I am sure. Well-used DUH! time.
I was absent two weeks ago when my article should have been here. I was at the wedding of my oldest granddaughter, outside (50 degrees and going down), but decent wind, a lovely Victorian house and grounds, and pretty good diet-busting food. Massive Social DUH! time.
Except the human pickings were good. The new mother-in-law has been married 8 times! I expected a femme fatale, but got an experienced wedding manager, like it or not. The groom had to tell her to back off a bit. Her current husband was a Texas businessman, pickup, cowboy boots, jeans, pearl button plaid shirt and a I don't want to be here attitude. He wanted to be on his phone. Slouched in his chair. Several 45-50-year-old men appeared, three of them, all "Uncles", I was told. Well-made tweed sport coats, Very properly dressed, tidy haircuts, not a muscle between them, slack handshakes, but good to talk to. Lots of young women with weird hair (to this 60s-70s man), purple, piercings, tattoos, ENERGY. Good human character models.
Happily married. He's a study, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment