On the way home, I was trying to read Aerogrammes, but was having a hard time concentrating. The day had affected my mood. I was thinking to myself: I really need to finish writing my book because I don't want to do this forever. I don't see myself working a 9 to 5 for the rest of my life, nor do I want to.
My mind was wandering and with it my eyes, which landed on an old man. This old man had his work badge clipped to his belt and it had the HarperCollins emblem. As an author-in-the-works, I know my publishers and their logos. I thought about saying a few words to him, but it was obvious he worked in facilities or janitorial. So I bit my tongue. He pulled out a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets and preceded to scratch off each one. I found it peculiar because I wondered: What can he do with that money at his age? Hope does not fade with age.
My eyes trailed some more and focused on the teenagers sitting directly across from me. It was a seat for two, but three were there - the girl was sitting on the lap of one of the guys. They were huddled around her iPhone in its pink case watching videos. I paid more attention to one of the guys, the guy without the girl on his lapped, and my heart stopped. It was him. It was Quail. It was one of the primary characters of my novel Onyx IN THE FLESH! It was as if he was pulled out from the pages of my unfinished manuscript. The way he was dressed, his hair, his height, his demeanor, his bone structure, his jaw... the image I envisioned in my head was sitting right in front of me! He looks up from the pink iPhone and I immediately spot the differences that made him real and not a hallucination. His eyes, eyebrows, lips/mouth were different than my vision of Quail's. And he was skinnier than my Quail. Nonetheless, there was too much of my Quail in this random teenager to even consider that it was just a mere coincidence.
Let me tell you, I left work late, got on the wrong train and transferred to this one, so I ended up catching the exact train this guy was on and got a seat right across from him - I was supposed to see him. I was supposed to have one of those days to get caught up at work to get off late to have my mind elsewhere to get on the wrong train to get on this train to sit across for this guy to see him, my Quail. My book found me. I felt my heart swell up as if it would burst at the seams because I couldn't believe it. It was an amazing feeling. I haven't written in the last two months and when I tried, nothing would come to me. But since I met Quail today, I sped home form the subway station and I'm skipping dinner with my roommate tonight to work on my MS.
I have a story to tell.
“Coincidences mean you're on the right path.” - Simon Van Booy, Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories
-Mariela
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