Editor’s Note: We are pleased to publish a new short story from friend-of-the-show Brian LaRossa, in support of his new project, Sub LaRossa, a monthly newsletter publishing original short fiction. This story was originally published there.

I shouldn’t start writing this.

I’m supposed to be working. That’s what my wife thinks I’m doing. It’s not exactly a lie—me writing this instead of working—because I do have a deadline on Monday, and I am sitting at my laptop, and I was working until I decided to take a break. Do I need to announce every break for me working to be the truth?

I started writing this because, well see, last week I bought a drink for a friend who recently published a novel. He also happens to be a book designer, so we have that in common. I asked him for advice about writing fiction and he said start by describing what’s happening at the moment that you’re writing. Then you’ll have some text to play with. If you revise that text enough times it will grow into something more true than the truth it’s describing.

Okay, so then what’s happening at this moment? Well, my wife is watching TV in the living room. She’s doing that instead of making us mac and cheese.

To be fair, we talked about whether to make mac and cheese or get delivery and then didn’t exactly finish the conversation. She said it’s Saturday night, can’t we at least get delivery! and I replied we don’t have any money left in our food delivery budget this month! She didn’t need me to tell her that. She manages our money. I suppose she was suggesting we could put it on a credit card. Anyway, after that exchange we stopped talking.

We were only yelling because we’re in different rooms. Still, raising our voices colored the evening with an angry mood.

Eventually I broke the silence and said anyway, I need to get back to work! but instead I started writing this. She didn’t reply and continued watching TV. We’re both acting like dinner is optional, but we never skip meals.

I mean, I would make the mac and cheese, I really would, but I need to work so we have a little more money in our food delivery budget next month.

Now we aren’t talking, or eating, which means our blood sugar is dropping, and if it drops low enough we’ll probably get into an argument. We might already be in one!

This isn’t my first attempt at writing fiction, it’s just my first attempt at writing it this way. I’ve written a couple novels and a bunch of short stories, all unpublished. Part of me asked my friend for advice half-hoping he would introduce me to his agent.

Last month I wrote a story about a couple of kids who have a crush on each other. Their backyards touch. He walks around the block to give her a marble with a swirl the color of her eyes. When he reaches her street he can’t remember the color of her house. After twisting with indecision, he keeps going, and ends up just walking around the block. Returning to his backyard he finds her waiting for him at the fence and puts the marble in her hand, touching her skin for the first time. It’s a simple little love story… maybe it needs another layer.

You know what, maybe she’s not watching TV at all! Maybe she’s just staring blankly at her show, waiting for her low blood sugar to thicken into anger. Maybe she wants to be angry!

Part of me wants to keep doing nothing just to see what will happen if I push her. Part of me wants her to be angry!

I mean listen, I do all the cooking. Maybe I’m a little resentful about that. I don’t generally feel resentful, I really don’t. I enjoy cooking. It reminds me of designing books. You repeat similar steps and fine tune your approach in a bid for excellence. Come to think of it, writing fiction is like that too. Maybe cooking and writing both feel familiar because they’re so similar to designing books.

Despite my enjoyment, if I resent cooking on some subconscious level, it might explain why I want to push her. I say push her but really I’m just writing this which doesn’t affect her at all beyond the fact that I’m not helping to solve dinner.

You know what, the fact that I do all the cooking might be the reason she doesn’t want to make the mac and cheese. It’s not her job.

One thing I’ve noticed about the act of writing is that, for me, it’s always accompanied by an aesthetic awareness of the text itself. I’m a little obsessed with text. That’s why I started writing fiction in the first place, because I wanted more from text than typography could offer. When I first started designing books I became obsessed with typography because I wanted more from text than reading could offer.

Back then I didn’t know what good color meant in reference to typography. Good color refers to the texture and balance and mood of the letterforms, it has nothing to do with actual color, which is similar to the way someone might call a work of fiction colorful, referring to the texture and balance and mood of the story.

Do chefs refer to the color of a meal beyond the meal’s actual palette? I mean the meal’s color palette, not the chef’s culinary palette.

Most of the authors whose books I design think typographic choices are inconsequential afterthoughts, like picking house paint. Actually, I don’t think the color of a house is inconsequential either. For example, in the love story with the marble, not remembering the color of her house prevents him from completing his quest.

My wife is a painter. She cares deeply about color, real color, not the metaphorical color of typography, and stories, and food.

You know what, the more I think about it, I don’t think chefs use the word color that way.

Okay, at this point I need to admit something, that is if I’m going to continue describing what’s happening at the moment that I’m writing, like my friend suggested. See, he also suggested that I revise my description over and over, and I have been, but doing so has led me to realize the moment that I’m writing is actually hard to define. Being true to this moment means admitting that I’ve made more than a thousand revisions to this text over the past month, so it’s more than a simple record of a single evening. It’s a kaleidoscopic record of how I’ve felt about food, and typography, and my wife across dozens of evenings.

Also, revising this record of events has changed the way I remember them. Like, now I have a fabricated memory of the fictional version in addition to a memory of what really happened. I think some of my strongest memories are actually the memories of dreams. I don’t trust my memory. For example, right now I’m questioning if she was ever really angry.

I mean, She asked a reasonable question. It’s Saturday night, can’t we at least get delivery? Can’t we? At least? And yet, I felt like she was angry. Why? Because she was yelling? Well, she’s in a different room. I was probably just coloring her with my own anger, probably because I do all the cooking. But you know what, she manages the money, and we both do the laundry, so really it all works out.

I don’t think chefs use the phrase good color to describe food but I do think people should use good color to describe falling in love. Because when you fall in love with someone it’s all about the texture and balance and mood of your time together.

Okay wow. I did not see this coming. My wife is asleep! I heard her snoring lightly and couldn’t believe my ears!

I went into the livingroom and sure enough she was curled up under a blanket on the couch, breathing steadily. I lowered the volume of the TV a little but didn’t turn it off. She loves sleeping to the sound of the TV.

Then I got worried she has a fever because it’s not like her to sleep through dinner, so I used our infrared thermometer to take her temperature. No fever! It crossed my mind she could be faking it, but she only breathes like that when she’s really asleep.

Her face just looked so peaceful. She looked small under the blanket, like she might disappear. I was overcome by a sense that our lives are unbearably short, as life is for all people, no matter the size of their food delivery budget.

I should have stopped working earlier. I mean, I did stop working, but instead of writing this I should have made her mac and cheese, or used a credit card to order delivery. She deserves delivery.

If I hadn’t wasted so much time writing this I could have done it all. We could have enjoyed dinner together. I could have snuggled up under the blanket with her on the couch. She could be sleeping in my arms right now! Really there’s plenty of time tomorrow to finish working before Monday’s deadline. I should have done it all!

I can at least do more than I’m doing right now. I mean, the first step is to do something, anything besides nothing. For starters I should stop pretending to work. I should attend to this moment for real, not just with text.

My stomach is growling.

Stop writing this.

Hero Illustration by Brian LaRossa