3rd Person Point of View

I am currently taking a class at MATC with the almost ridiculously wonderful Matt Guenette. A recent assignment was to turn a first person story into a third person account. I took the '101 Ways....' and ended up with this. I was really disappointed with it, but got some pretty encouraging feedback from my peers.




His White Teacup

Unlike mornings or afternoons, in the evenings the kitchen lights illuminated the table, the chairs, the two figures, so irresistibly that passersby shamelessly stopped to stare, as if the picture window were a screen and the images were frames reeling through a projector. The window was built for this kind of drama. Perhaps the players were too. Seemingly unaware of the street audiences, the actor and actress never broke character, never turned away or shut the drapes as men with dogs and women with strollers circled the block three, four, five times too many just to see one more exchange, to imagine one more phrase.

She has not been in the picture since last fall. That following winter was so dreary, every evening wandering past only to find the lights dimmed or the boy alone at the table. Once, one night, the teacup sat on the counter. It never got to the table. He never brought it to the table.

Spring was spring and summer was summer, each season with enough beauty and drama steaming from the city sidewalks and streets to keep eyes from stealing strangers' indoor moments.

But today, today anyone willing to look up from the brown leaves crackling beneath his feet can see him prepare for her.

From a top cupboard shelf he takes out the white teacup, his white teacup for her. He washes, dries, and sets it next to the cleaned coffeemaker on the cleaned countertop.

He checks his watch.
He rehearses his gestures.
What was this high and that wide?
He paces.
Or was it that high and this wide?
He checks his watch. Maybe it was collapsed, then expanded, mashed and then folded.
He pauses.
He pours tap water into the coffeemaker, adds grinds from a tin to the filter.
He checks his watch.
He paces.
He gets to the front door by the second rap.

"Hey Andy." The sigh of his name rustles what leaves are left on the sidewalk's trees. "How have you b-"

The door closes as quickly as it opened.

Places are taken. He brings his white teacup with his coffee for her. The scene begins.
She keeps her gaze down into the contents of the teacup.
He leaves the table, leaves the kitchen.

She keeps at the coffee.

He returns with a book, a title that makes her smile to her coffee. She taps the inside of her left arm without looking up.
He holds that left arm.
He begins his monologue.
It appears that it was this wide and that high, then there might have been rain or sparkles or magic or fireflies, followed by a pow! bam! or a crash! He smiles wide, looking at her, one hand around the arm and one hand reinforcing his words.

She keeps at the coffee.

The audience begins to circle, to stare. Sharp inhales at what looks like a frown, a scowl, silent laughs at his smile, held breaths waiting for her to look, just one look up into the eyes fixed so firmly on her frown, her scowl, her lowered lids.

What could she possibly find in the cup that is not in him? She takes no sugar, takes no cream.
Are there words floating in the liquid?
Intellect?
Memories?
Breaking news?
Rain or sparkles or magic or fireflies?
Certainly there are not hands or arms.
Not lips.
Not skin or blood or lungs or heart.
Only hot caffeinated water that begins to make her knee bounce. Or maybe that is him too.

Does she read the grinds at the bottom of the cup? Is there fortune or prophecy left after the last sip? Translucent stains of truth, if she is searching for truth? How much can one contemplate coffee? A teacup?

He takes the cup from her hands, places it back between her hands after refilling it.

She keeps at it.

He takes her hand from the rim of the cup.

Will she smile?
Will she pull back?
Will she cry or speak or scream?

He holds the hand between his. Not a word exchanged.

Is there anything left in that cup? Any more distractions, any more theories? Will the crowd carry on down sidewalks with broken hearts?




Finally, she looks up.
.
.
.