Thoughts on a Story

I heard a story from my construction crew buddy and it went something like this: a few days ago it was a stormy winter midnight on the Oregon Coast. A fishermen and his girlfriend got into a fight. He bolted out the door and began walking down Highway 101. A short time later, or perhaps it was hours an miles later, he was struck by a vehicle driven by a woman who had gone to pick up a pizza and had a couple drinks at the parlor while waiting for the order.

Upon hearing the impact, she thought she’d hit a deer. She got out of her car to investigate and found nothing. She drove home. She told a neighbor the story, and in the morning he went to the stretch of road where the collision occurred. He found the fisherman, dead. He hurried back to his neighbor’s house and told her to call the police. She did. She was later arrested and the outcome of her case is pending.

I have one question: what was the argument between the fishermen and his girlfriend that would drive him into the storm? I try to imagine the conversation. They were probably loaded.

I suppose the other question I have is: what is the girlfriend’s current state of mind after her boyfriend’s lonely death in a ditch alongside Highway 101. He had two kids. He was 44 years old.

This is the difference between fiction and journalism and I am a journalist at heart and want to know what they said to each other. I don’t want to make it up. In fiction these incidents and moments are always so elevated and purposeful. In journalism, the reporter might uncover what might be utterly banal. For most writers, it might be hard or uninteresting to write about something utterly banal, but perhaps it is more important to write about the banality of life than the higher purpose of life since so many people seemed trapped by banality and not engaged in higher purpose.

Food for creative thought. Wrestle with this: there is banality in beauty and beauty in banality.