Red Room Where the Writers Are

The oil spits at us from the metal cooking surface. A woman with the forearms of a man wields two metal spatulas like a kung fu master. Her arms are scarred with knife marks and hot oil. She's a cutter. The tattoos on the meaty web between thumb and forefinger flash at us as she cooks the beef, the crab, the sunny-side-up eggs, the onions, the shredded cabbage, the bean sprouts, and the pork. We help ourselves to bowls of rice from the rice cooker. The tea is free, too. Within thirty minutes our food's been cooked, eaten, and paid for.

Watching someone work so hard at making something that can be devoured in such a short time makes me think of writing in a different light. Don’t writers also prepare dishes for the reader to devour? We sweat and slave over the keyboard, and we know when we’re cooking, don’t we? Then a reader comes along and reads it all in one long gulp of the eyes. The only difference is our meals can be eaten more than once by other readers.