In which a philosophical argument that may or may not have relevance to the story later on is discussed in a small coffee tea shop over some knitting.
“I’m just saying that I don’t think you can take all adages at face value,” Stephanie said, setting down her tea cup and picking up her knitting. “I mean, a lot of them aren’t even testable, if you wanted to go the Mythbusters route.”
“Like what?” Jenny asked. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched? There’s nothing really to test there, it’s just smart not to count on something before you know it.”
“Okay, but not all adages are practical advice. Oh, how about this one – a picture is worth a thousand words. I often tell my editor that I should be able to slap a picture up in my column and meet my goal for the day, but she’s not buying it.” Stephanie grinned. “And Janice says NaNoWriMo would be a lot easier if that were true. Although it might actually be somewhat difficult to tell a story in exactly fifty pictures.”
“Well, I think that one’s rubbish,” Maria chimed in. “Some pictures are worth a lot more, others, a lot less. Take this for instance.”
She pulled out a pen and drew a line on the napkin, then shoved it to the center of the table. They all stared at it for a moment.
“Okay,” Jenny said slowly. “It’s a line.”
“Right,” Maria said triumphantly. “Four words, and you’ve described the picture. Now, there are certainly pictures worth far more than a thousand words, as well, but to just say that any picture is… well, that’s silly.”
“Well, they don’t mean it literally,” Rene said. “It’s just a statement on how much you can take in in a single glance. A snapshot. The brain can process a lot more visual information a lot faster than it can the written or spoken word. Take driving, for example. Could a blind person drive efficiently if you simply gave a running commentary on everything that was going on around them? No, they couldn’t. Your brain can’t process the information that way fast enough. And yet you can drive, because your brain can handle the same amount of information visually.”
“And I disagree about the line,” Stephanie said. “I think you could easily turn it into a thousand words. I mean, it’s not just a line that spontaneously appeared. There’s a story behind the line. Hell, there’s a story behind the paper it’s written on and the pen it was written with. There’s a story to why you picked a line, and not a star or a circle. Whether I can tell the true story, that’s a different question. But I can tell a story. And I can make it more than a thousand words.”
“Out of a line on a napkin?” Jenny asked.
“Out of anything! All you have to do is use your imagination. Take those two over there, for example.” She pointed to a couple having a heated argument at a small table across the way. “If you froze them in time, took a picture of that moment, you could tell any number of stories about them. Why they are in this place, what they are fighting about, all of that is a story. And it would take more than a thousand words to tell.”
“But that’s not fair, nor do I think that’s the basis of the saying,” Rene said. “Anyone can make up a story. The thousand words bit is meant to be descriptive. In that it would take a thousand words to paint that picture in your mind. In the case of the couple, you’d have to descript the café you see in the background, the table, their clothes, their appearance, and, finally, their expressions. Everything you see at a glance would have to be described in minute detail in order to get a picture in your head that would match the scene. Yes, to truly see the line on the napkin it would take more than four words, but I doubt it would take a thousand. Not even the best word count padder could manage that one!”
“Challenge accepted,” Stephanie said.
“It wasn’t a challenge,” Rene said. “It’s… okay, all right, it’s a challenge.”
“What are the stakes?” Jenny asked. “There has to be some sort of wager.”
“Ooooh, I know,” Maria said. Her eyes sparked wickedly. “The loser has to show up to the next knitter’s guild meeting… working on a crochet piece.”
There was a sharp intake of breath around the table. What she was proposing was preposterous. It could get you ostracized. No one would dare accept…
“I accept,” Stephanie said. She set down her knitting and pulled out her netbook.
“Straight description only,” Rene said. “No romanticizing about the meaning of the line, or the motivation behind the drawing of the line. No talking about the café or the table. Just the napkin and the line.”
“No, I don’t agree to that. Okay, not that café or the customers or any of that, but the napkin has to be resting on something. It’s not just floating in a void, and the napkin in and of itself is not a picture,” Stephanie said, already distracted and typing away on the keyboard.
“She’s right,” Jenny said. “I can’t imagine a napkin not on something.”
“Okay, fine, you can describe a backdrop, but that’s it. No other things around it, okay?” Rene conceded.
“Right,” Stephanie said, still pecking away at her keyboard. “Just out of curiosity - who judges?”
“Jenny and Maria can be the judges. They’ll determine if you’ve stayed within the parameters of the contest.”
Jenny and Maria looked at each other and grimaced, but nodded.
“So,” Rene said, changing the topic and resuming her knitting. “Have you two heard the latest about Karen?”
“Don’t mind me,” Stephanie said. “Just a girl trying to write, that’s all.”
“Okay, we won’t,” Rene said.
“We didn’t set a time limit,” Jenny said. “You don’t have to do that right now.”
“Actually, I kind of do,” Stephanie said. “My column for tomorrow is due by five, and I’m going to turn this into it. It’s perfect, when you think about it. And if I don’t like our fine, though perhaps biased, judges opinions, I can lick my wounds and ask my readers. But I’ll also need your judgment quickly, then, so I can finish up the column.”
“No problem,” Maria said. “I think we’ll be able to decide pretty quickly. But I do so want to hear the latest about Karen.” She looked at Rene.
“Well,” Rene said. “You didn’t hear it from me, but someone said she has been trying to pass off that new crocheting technique as knitting to gain admittance to the guild. As if it would fool anyone! I guess to an untrained eye, it looks a little like knitting, but… no. And the funny part is that the technique is so much more complicated than just knitting! Why she won’t just learn is beyond me. What did she expect to do at the guild meetings? People would notice that she never knitted during the meetings.”
“That’s not all,” Jenny said. “I heard her last piece was made completely of acrylic yarn! She tried to brush it out and pass it off as mohair, but everyone knew. Sad, really.”
“You know the only reason she’s doing it, don’t you?” Maria asked.
“No, why?” Jenny and Rene said is unison.
“Peter, the guy she’s crazy about? His mother is Amelda, vice-president of the Meadowlark knitting guild. She’s desperate to get in with her, I guess there was a rather embarrassing incident when they met and poor Karen has never recovered. So I think she thinks that if she can go there for Thanksgiving and say she’s a member of our knitting guild it might ease the tension.”
“But then why doesn’t she just learn to knit?” Rene asked. “That would be the simple way.”
“I think she asked,” Jenny said. “I heard whispers of it awhile back, but I didn’t know who it was. Apparently she made the mistake of asking Mary, who mocked and laughed and flat-out refused to teach her. Who can blame the girl for being afraid to ask anyone else after that? She is a crocheter, after all, and not everyone would even be willing to talk to her, let alone teach her.”
“But shouldn’t we want to convert her? Shouldn’t we reach out to the poor, unfortunate, misguided crocheters of the world? Isn’t that part of the guild code?” Rene pulled a second skein of yarn out of her bag, attaching the new one to the old as she ran out of yarn.
“Not everyone is as open-minded,” Jenny said softly. “They don’t believe crocheters can be redeemed, and they think that associating with them will ‘infect’ them.”
“I’ve been around crocheters before, and I’ve never had the urge to pick up a hook,” Rene scoffed. “That’s poppycosh.”
“If you ask me,” Stephanie said suddenly. “Karen had it all wrong. The thing she should have done was to ask Peter’s mother to teach her. That way she’s showing an interest, and will make Amelda feel special, and will learn to knit. It’s a win-win-win, though I would say it’s best if she didn’t mention that she’s a crocheter.”
“I quite like the idea of trying to do NaNo in fifty pictures,” Jenny said suddenly. “You’re right, it might be harder than you think. Fifty pictures, no more, no less, to tell a complete story. And a real story, not something simple. Something complex.”
“I think it sounds like a stupid idea. It’s basically a comic without words, then. And it would be easy, though our definitions of simple and complex may differ,” Maria said.
“You do it, then,” Jenny said stubbornly.
“I don’t want to,” Maria shot back.
“You can’t, you mean,” Jenny said.
“I have nether the inclination nor the time,” Maria said stiffly.
“Ladies, ladies, let’s be civilized and use our inside voices,” Rene said. “We already have one challenge in the works, let’s finish that one before we move on to the next. And I think Stephanie has a point, but only sort of. I think Karen needs to learn the basics of knitting, then ask Amelda for help with a specific stitch or design. So she’s already a knitter, which is good, but she’s also humbling herself and showing Amelda that she thinks of herself as inferior. And Amelda will eat that up.”
“So the point remains that someone needs to teach Karen to knit. Not me, I’m a horrible teacher,” Jenny said.
“Why don’t you just take a series of photographs to show her?” Maria said nastily.
“Hey!” Jenny started to get up.
“Don’t start something you’re not willing to finish,” Maria said, brandishing her free knitting needle like a rapier.
Jenny leapt up and darted around the table, slapping the knitting needle out of Maria’s hand. It bounced along the floor and came to rest under the table of the couple who had been fighting, but now looked up to see what the commotion was about. Stephanie calmly picked up her laptop and scooted backwards out of harm’s way. Rene followed her.
“What is your problem?” Jenny said through clenched teeth.
“You’re the one with the problem,” Maria said. “A problem keeping your hands to yourself.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Jenny said, paling. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, it’s exactly what I think. And I have the photos to prove it.” Maria got up and marched over to retrieve her knitting needle.
Jenny sank slowly into her chair, covering her face with her hands. “It really isn’t what you think,” she said softly.
“Then what is it?” Maria stood, hands on hips, looming over Jenny.
Jenny stayed silent, her hands still covering her face.
“He loves you? You love him? Is that what it is?” Maria asked.
Stephanie and Rene exchanged shocked glances. Then Stephanie raised an eyebrow, and Rene nodded. Now, come to think of it, that would explain a lot of things.
“Forget it. I hope the two of you are very happy. Good riddance to both of you. I just wish you’d had the guts to tell me, I might have forgiven you then. But now you can have the bastard and I hope you both rot in hell.” Maria grabbed her bag and stomped out of the café.
A minute later, Jenny picked up her own bag, and with her head still down, slunk out. Stephanie scooted back up to the table.
“Well, hell. Now who’s going to judge?” she asked.
Rene just stared at her.
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