“Stories, we all have them. As humans, we’re all social creatures, no matter how much we don’t like to admit it. That’s why we sometimes act out, that’s why being rejected hurts us and why being lonely is depressing and frustrating. And stories, are the one thing that we all like. We all tell each other stories, whether we think them, tell them or write them, we always tell stories. Big, small, happy, tragic, stories are what bind us, helps us understand each other.”

The phone rang, it was her again, I picked up more out of a sense of shame for denying them once too many times. Hello? She didn’t wait for me to finish the greeting as she went on her tirade. Hey, you finally picked up, look… Here’s the deal, I’m with a theater troupe at a coffee right now. I know one of the actresses here and the guy that runs this whole deal. So, as the conversation progressed, I asked them what they were performing and doing in town and stuff like that, right? Yeah, so listen here, they told me that they want to try something new, something different, right? So guess who I thought about? Yeah, Mr. Author, it’s you. I thought about you and your books. I remember that you once told me that you’d want your books turned into a theater piece and that you’d want it as an audio book but you’d need a theater group. So guess what? I told them about your books, what you’d like to do and what you’re about and how you approach things and what your outlook on the world is and they’d want to talk to you about it. What do you say? Isn’t that amazing? You’ll have to treat me to something, of course I’ll bring my mon cher with me and you, your girl. She sometimes talks like a Shinkansen and you feel like that train hit you and shattered your brains to pieces. This is the motherly awesome Kris, she awesome, but erratic. Anyway, here’s the guy I was telling you about that runs this whole troupe, his name is Andrew by the way. Here… Hey, guy. I’m Andrew, I heard a lot about you from Kris. So you wrote a book? Usually when people ask me that, they either want to clarify things or they’re curious how I’ll respond. Hey, nice to meet you, I wrote like four that are in that style and could be easily turned into plays. I am really curious what he has in mind. Look, we can’t pay you much, but if you want we can give you like a 10% if you’re interested, just so we get this out of the way. And you can even direct it yourself, if you feel like it. That was really odd. So, you don’t want to read them or anything like that? He started laughing. Kris here convinced me, so if you want, we can meet tomorrow if you’re free and discuss the details and what you’d like and what we can offer. Well, they can’t pay me, cause of course they can’t, no one really gives a shit about this, unless you’re a big shot. Fuck it, why not. Yeah, tomorrow sounds great. See you at the statue downtown, next to the bell then. He responded with a sure and that ended the phone call. Well, that’s not how I imagined this would go today. But I’m going to have some fun with this.

This is the fifth of the short stories for the Pilot Program. How does it work? You read the short stories within the pilot program, you re-read them, share them, like them, comment if you like them, force your friends to read them and then maybe this will become the short story series for 2020.

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