I had this idea earlier: take a photograph from the internet and write a story about it. It’s a way to finish my words when I have nothing else to say. Not much of a plan, but better than sitting and staring at a blank page with no stories to tell. Here goes nothing.

It was hot in the restaurant, and it smelled of fish or maybe it was body odor. It’s surprising how difficult it has become to tell the difference between those two smells. The restaurant was dim with light provided by upside-down steel bowls under which fluorescent light bulbs flickered.

The bulbs were the newest thing in conserving electricity. And in the early part of the century, when electricity was constant, they worked wonders. It’s amazing what a few years can do. After most light bulbs were changed over to the fluorescents, the frequency of the electricity began to break down. It was not about conserving electricity but about using maximizing the small amount of electricity that made it through the grid. It turned out that the fluorescent bulbs were not very efficient in maximizing that energy. The restaurant was dark because of the tan light, the bulbs flickering more than glowing.

The walls were white with tiles along the bottoms of the display cases. Dishes of food waited behind half circles of glass. The glass is called sneeze guards when the bottoms are left open. Here they were closed, with the waiters waiting behind the glass to serve the food. Three rows to four rows of dishes lined up. The waiter wore a white shirt and hovered over the food with a pair of tongs. You pointed at what you wanted and he placed a fistful in the plate.

My inspection of the place took place over many weeks, and during those weeks, I got to know the two women that worked there well. They wore identical outfits each day: peach aprons with red lettering across the chest, and tan shirts, hats, and pants.

There was so much more I wanted to write about this photograph. But I guess it’s a start. Check on the woman on the left. I wanted to tell a story about her before the details of the restaurant bogged me down. She looked like she had stories to tell.

Chinese Restaurant, photo by siebe.

My second idea was to take this news story about Santa’s death and turn it into a story. How much would watching Santa die while you sat on his lap influence a young person’s development? Of course I never did get around to finishing it. Like the photo story above, I lost interest and it waned after less than a paragraph. I’ll post it because I wrote it and that’s what I do. (I need an acronym for that. Something like: IWITIPIBTWID, don’t ask.)

When I look back over my life I see one moment that defined it. I’m not the first person to make this observation. Many people claim that the course of their lives is changed in one moment.

“How long have we been waiting?” the small boy asked his mother. The line to see Santa Claus was long. They had waited thirty minutes and were only halfway through. She told him so and he nodded, as if he knew this all along and only needed verification. He stood in the line holding his mother’s hand. Ahead of him more children waited with their parents. At the very front a two green elves greeted the children before escorting the children to sit on Santa’s lap. Santa sat on a large golden throne surrounded by candy canes and a leaning Christmas tree, the star threatening to fall over at any moment.