1 november

The story starts in an airport. This is an ideal place for a story to begin because it’s an ideal look at the problem of defining where a story really begins in the first place, if there is a first place.

Even a simple line -- the man getting off of the plane, returning home from a business trip, dreams of making it home in time to tuck in his children. This is a picture so known you can see the man’s tired rollerbag following dutifully behind him, the unevenness worn in his shoulder where his laptop bag has unbalanced his jacket. You imagine dust on his shoes, even inside this modern, mostly linoleum corridor. No matter whether I stretch this man or your imagination in any number of directions -- his “children” are all parrots, his children are characters on an evening sitcom, his children are in the cemetery -- the appearance of the man himself begs all kinds of questions, if you’ll pardon this grossly common misuse of the phrase.

Where is the man coming from? What was he doing there? How long has he been away? Simple questions, maybe, perhaps, with simple answers. Go bigger. Why did he choose this flight and time? Was it chosen for him? Why did he choose this family? Was it chosen for him? Is he a traveler or a pilot? Does he sit or does he also stand and serve? Where did he get those socks? Bigger, broader, back. Where did his story begin? Who would he be if his mother had sat next to someone else on the first day of high school in a new dress in a new town?