Scene takes place at a party where people are young and cool. Like a college party or maybe a little older like 20-something bohemia. Cool music and cool conversations and cool clothes. Everybody cool just like you pictured it being when you saw cool movies as a kid. Except cooler than that, because that was the coolness happening above your childhood head, but of course the current coolness so completely outclasses that prior coolness, that it’s embarrassing for all the old people who were young and thought they were cool in that comparative clueless and morally questionable lameness.

A: Hey.
B: Hey.
A: I really dig your T-shirt.
B: Oh, thanks! I made it myself. It’s a woodblock print. Those are my specialty.
A: Yeah?
B: I have a lot of concepts. They come to me in dreams and while I’m walking to work.
A: Cool.
B: I like your hair like that.
A: Thank you.
B: I’m not just saying that.
A: I wouldn’t have guessed you were.
B: I try to only say things that I mean.
A: That’s a good approach. But sometimes it’s best to give people a break from cruel truths.
B: Oh, totally! I didn’t mean it like that! I’m not one of those, “I always speak my mind!” types!
A: I know. That whole scene goes too far. As if anyone even knew their mind!
B: Or as if every random opinion in your mind needs to strut out into the public sphere!
A: Is it, um.
B: What?
A: This is going to sound, um.
B: What?
A: It’s just that, um.
B: Tell me!
A: I am so happy sitting next to you and feeling your presence shine through into my conscious space.
B: Oh! That’s so sweet!
A: You just seem like a really nice person; I mean, no.
B: I don’t seem like a nice person?
A: No, of course; it’s just that there’s lots of people who seem nice and who are in fact nice, but that don’t make me feel like this because
B: Because?
A: Because, gosh, you know
B: What?
A: Some people you just kind of feel yourself connecting with, and so you want
B: What?
A: Oh, to, just, nothing but, well, kind of
B: Now, look, you’ve taken a strange approach with me, starting with this kind of talk so early into our acquaintance. You’re just going to have to bite the bullet and tell me what you’re thinking.
A: I’m thinking I’d like to find a way to spend more time with you and get to know you better and
B: And?
A: uh
B: Don’t answer that one. The rest is sufficient and the answer is Yes!
A: Oh, that’s nice. Can I mention that you smell nice?
B: Not tonight. Bring that up next time.
A: OK

BW/AW
copyright: AMW