Rock Stars who write

     In a psychological thriller, surprisingly, I read a great passage about authors. I wish it were true, but the story is fictional. In this scene, two characters are strangers seated next to each other on a flight from London to New York.

     ... "I'm a writer."
     And those were the words that changed everything because writers were my rock stars.
     He instantly transformed from an irksome stain on the planet into a creature of wonder. We started chatting, and he was charming and witty and clever. The book I was reading went into the seat pocket and wasn't opened again. I have always had a soft spot for storytellers. I fall in love with their words; then I fall in love with the people who wrote them. I sometimes wish I could crawl inside their heads, hear their innermost thoughts, and see the world through their eyes.
     It isn't as though I'd never met an author before. The woman who raised me—when my mother gave up trying to—worked in publishing. I spent my teenage years living in a home that was often filled with writers. She would host these amazing dinner parties in her London flat, and they would all sit around for hours talking, eating, drinking. I would sit on the top step of the staircase, secretly listening, wishing I was allowed to be down there having fun with them. Those "dinner parties" often went on until the sun came up and I had to get myself ready for shool. I'd go to class exhausted but happy. It didn't matter to me whether they were million-copy bestsellers or award-winning novelists—though many of them were—they were all magicians of words, and that was my favorite kind of magic.
     We talked so much when we first met on the plane that I barely noticed when it took off ...
     ... It was a night flight to New York, and before long the cabin was in darkness. Most of the other passenters seemed to be asleep already—travel cushions tucked under their heads, eye masks on—but we continued to whisper, like children excited to still be up long after bedtime. We spoke for hours, and I felt like I could talk to him forever about books, travel, life, anything. I wanted to know everything about him, what he thought and felt, to know if his view of the world was the same as mine. Have you ever met someone and just clicked? As though you had known them for years even though you had just met? That's how it felt.

     Quoted from Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney. Diggi Books LTD. 2024. Flatiron Books. ISBN 9781250337788