Bibit in Tenebris

"Have you ever gone a long time without hearing a word," asked Dan, "or seeing it in print, and then it jumps out at you out of nowhere, and it's all you can think about?"

Ben considered this while drinking beer.

"I've had words surprise me," he said, "and I guess part of it is that I forgot them, yeah.  Why, what's on your mind?"

"I was reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea earlier," said Dan.

"Always a good choice," said Ben.

"Thanks," Dan said, and took a drink of beer.  "It's early on, they've just got onboard the submarine."

"The Nautilus," said Ben.

"That's what I said," said Dan.  "And the harpooner guy--"

"Harpooneer," said Ben, "like musketeer.  Ned Land."

"Ned," said Dan, "he's trying to break out of the room they're in, and I can't remember exactly what he says, but it's something like 'how do we know these guys aren't cannibals? They may be planning to eat us!' or something like that."

"So 'cannibals' is on your mind," asked Ben.

"If I may," said Dan, holding up a hand.  "And-- how do you pronounce that guy's name?"

"Which guy?" asked Ben.  "Captain Nemo?"

"No, not Captain Nemo," said Dan.  "Who can't pronounce Captain Nemo?  The guy who's traveling with the Professor.  His name starts with a C."

"Conseil," said Ben.

"Conseil?" said Dan, testing the pronounciation.

"Conseil," said Ben.  "He's from Belgium, right?  I'm not sure, but I think it's Conseil."

"I always just thought it was like counsel," said Dan.  "But then I realized that probably wasn't right."

"So Ned is trying to escape," said Ben.

"Right, and he flies off the handle again and says something crazy," said Dan, "and Conseil, who's the cool-headed one, just says, 'Nonsense.'"

"Nonsense," said Ben.

"Yeah, I think he says it like 'calm down,' only he says nonsense," said Dan.

"I don't think I've ever told someone nonsense before," said Ben.

"He just throws it down," Dan said.  "Never mind, you're crazy, there's nothing to worry about."

"It seems like it would be rude to say nowadays," said Ben.

"It is a little rude," said Dan, "but that's part of the thing.  It's rude, but only for emphasis.  He's mainly trying to reassure the guy."

"It's lingo," said Ben.

"It's badinage," said Dan.

"Sort of," said Ben.  "It's only one word, but it's not bad."

"Nonsense," said Dan.

"Nonsense," said Ben.  

They both drank, looking around the mostly deserted bar.  

It was a busy time of year for them, between finals coaching and papers coming due.  The fact that they were at the bar at this time meant they were each separately avoiding some unpleasant responsibility among these, but it was convenient that they'd managed to put things off at the same time.

Presently Ben finished his drink, and rose to get get two more.

"You should use that in something," he said, sitting back down.

"I will at my next opportunity," said Dan, accepting the new glass.

Ben sipped his beer.

"What are you working on now?" he asked.

"Besides work?" asked Dan.  

Ben nodded.

"Nothing," said Dan.

"At all?" said Ben.  "I thought you were still working on the Titans of Renewal, at least."

Dan took a drink and shook his head.

"What about you?" he asked his companion.

Ben sort of squinted and rubbed the short hair on the back of his head.

"Well," he said, "there is one thing, but to be honest I haven't opened it this week.  I was hoping to find time before the weekend."

"It's Friday," said Dan.

"I said hoping," said Ben.  "There's always hope."

"So it's a lousy time for personal stuff," said Dan.

"It'll be summer soon enough," said Ben.

Dan made a face.

"I feel like I'm always putting stuff off until summer," he said.  "I start like ten things in the first week I'm off, and I don't finish any of them.  Then I have to pick up a job to save more money, and I wind up goofing off in my spare time, and next thing I know I'm thinking the first few weeks of the fall semester are usually pretty slow, maybe I can get caught up then."

Ben shrugged.

"I mean," said Dan, "it's good to make money writing."

"Keeps us sharp," said Ben. 

"Maybe," said Dan.  "How sharp do you have to be to ace Eng Comp 101?"

"Maybe," said Ben.  "I've still got that dissertation I'm polishing up."

"Oh yeah," said Dan.  "How's that going?"

"Cake walk," said Ben.  "Except for one thing."

"What's that," said Dan.

"I have no idea what it's about," said Ben.

"How can you not know?" asked Dan.  "You've read it a dozen times by now, you wrote a lot of it."

"It's molecular biology," said Ben.  "He brought me on to fix anything that's not an equation."

"And?" asked Dan.

"It's mostly equations," said Ben.

"What are you polishing?" asked Dan incredulously.

"Paragraph length," said Ben.  "Spelling and grammar."

"Oh good," said Dan.  "You're about as useful as autocorrect."

Ben shrugged and took a drink.  "It's work," he said.

"Is it though?' asked Dan.

Ben looked thoughtful.

"If I could write for a living," he said, "I mean sell books, that would be good."

"Agreed," said Dan, toasting lightly and taking a drink.

"But if I didn't have to do this work," said Ben, "I think I would probably try to do something like it, anyway."

"Why's that?" asked Dan.  "For the benefit of mankind?"

"Nonsense," said Ben with a smile.

Dan swore.  "I was trying to work it in," he said.  "So what then."

"So what is," said Ben, pausing for a drink, "that I like when people understand something they didn't before, and it's because of me."

"How bad they are at writing?" asked Dan.

"We've covered this," said Ben, "that it's more important to you to be good at writing than it is to me.  I just like writing, and I like trying to write like me, whether that's good or not."

Dan blew a raspberry.

"Selling any beach front property?" he asked.  "Of course you like that you're good.  If you were bad at writing, writing wouldn't be any fun."

"I'm not sure that's right," said Ben, "but maybe there's a little of both.  Anyway what I like best about what I do,"

"Besides getting paid for it," said Dan.

"Besides that," agreed Ben, "is that when I'm done, the people I work themselves for are maybe a little better at writing from my help."

"Sounds like the good of mankind to me," said Dan.

"No, it's not altruism," said Ben.  "I don't think so, anyway.  I think style is important."

"Style," said Dan.  He finished his beer, got up, and returned with two more.  

"Style," he said again.

"Yeah, style," said Ben.  "It's like a kind of a character.  Everybody's got their own way of doing things, writing included.  The words they choose to describe something are different from the ones someone else might choose, and the more they practice the more they sound like themselves.  Conventions disperse.  Patterns emerge."

"When I said 'style,'" said Dan, "it wasn't because I needed a definition."

"Yeah but hear me out," said Ben.  "When someone actually uses my help, and we work on a project for a while, I get to find out what they work like, what they write like when they're writing like them.  It's different every time, and from what I can see it's just who they are, like it's irreducible, and unique.  It interests me to get to see that, is all."

"When I was young," Dan began singing, "it seemed that life was so magical..."

"I think you know what I'm talking about, though," Ben said, cutting in.

"Do you date your clients often?" asked Dan sardonically.

"Yeah, yeah," said Ben, "knock it down, I figured you would.  But I think you know what I'm talking about."

"Maybe," said Dan.  He was privately wishing he could have said 'nonsense,' but Ben had said it first.

They drank for a moment in silence.

"Does that happen every time?" asked Dan.

"Of course not," said Ben.  "If you know what I'm talking about you know they hardly ever work with you."

"So how often," said Dan, who seemed mildly intrigued.

"Like one in twenty times, maybe," said Ben.  "But it's worth it, or I wouldn't have brought it up."

"I thought I brought it up," said Dan.  "Anyway, what about the other nineteen times?"

Ben shrugged and nearly finished his drink.  "They don't listen to me and I just write if for them."

Dan chuckled.  "And then they pay you," he said.

"And they pay me," Ben said, his face pulling into a smile.

"Here's to that, at least," said Dan, and clinked Ben's glass.

Ben drank his last gulp and rose.

"Let's get back to work," he said.