The assignment: Listen to two people have a conversation and take note of their dialog, the way they speak. Cast them into a fictional scene and create dialog for them in their own voices.
Writer’s note: Two of my lucky coworkers became the subject of this short piece after I decided the only place I could get away with eavesdropping on someone’s conversation and taking notes on it without being caught, was in the office. To give some context, our internet and server connections are constantly going down and it’s happened a few times when all of our IT people have inconveniently been MIA. Once these two guys ventured into our equivalent of the mainframe computer room where it was joked they were going to “push the big red button”. I wasn’t there, but this is how I imagined it going down. Update: see instructor’s comments at end of post.
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THE LITTLE RED BUTTON
The two men were standing cramped in the cluttered computer closet staring down at the machine, eyebrows raised. Hard drives whirred softly around them as they silently surveyed the situation.
“Red wire or blue wire?” Max ribbed Gary with an elbow.
“Yeah, right.” Gary was looking at the humming box as if he expected it to explode. “So what did he say we had to do again? Tell me exactly.”
Max shifted his weight. “He said turn off the external PBS box, switch the cable input to port 2 — no, from 2 to 1 — and then hit reset.” He raised his hand and presented his palm. “See, I wrote it down.”
Gary looked at the smudged ink and said over the rim of his glasses, “Oh good, the future of Toronto’s community news rests literally in the sweaty palm of your hand.”
Max chuckled, “Hey man, I couldn’t find any paper! You guys call yourselves journalists, there wasn’t a notepad to be found in that newsroom!”
Gary grunted. “We just fill them up that fast.”
“Hey, look at that,” said Max, reaching a long arm up to the packed shelf over Gary’s head and pulling out a dusty comic book. “Jesus Christ, these I.T. guys have a ton of crap in here!”
“Would you put that back,” Gary said, backing away from the falling dust. “You’re getting shit all over me.”
“Sorry Gar.” he jammed it back in its place, sending more dust into the air. “Whoops.”
Max stepped back, arms at his side, avoiding the editor’s steely glare.
“Let’s just fucking do this.”
“Okay,” said Max, bending down and pointing to the far corner. “I think you’re gonna have to get back behind there, the PBS box is the one on the floor.”
“Try that again. You get back behind there. I’ll push the button.”
“Alright boss,” Max said and stepped carefully between wires, hands running along the edge of the overstuffed shelves for balance.
“Don’t step on anything important,” warned Gary.
“Or on any booby traps,” added Max with a grin. He knelt down to the grey box, searched for the power button and flipped it. “One down.”
Reaching over to another hard drive, Max pulled up some cables, inspecting them.
“Is that the cable wire he meant?” Gary asked, leaning over from his spot by the door.
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I mean, yeah it is.” Max pulled it. “I hope.”
“You hope!”
Max switched the cable ports. “Ok, moment of truth Gar. Press that little reset button and cross your fingers.”
Gary looked at the black box, and slowly extended his finger to the raised red button, but stopped just short. “So you’re sure that’s all he said to do? This is the last step?”
“Positive,” Max said firmly, but then added, “Just let go if you get electrocuted.”
Gary cursed, held his breath and pushed.
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From the instructor: It was suggested that I remove some of the superfluous words like ‘dryly’ and ‘gruff’ and ‘joked’ and let the dialog between the characters do its work and express these ideas for me.
