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Community is Fiction: A Human Connection-
An empty white paper bag from P.F. Chang's China Bistro rests on the opposite corner of this full-size pillow-top bed I am sitting cross-legged on. A glaring notebook-computer is open on my lap and my empty fingers sit motionless on the letters; on the screen is a bullet list of events, separated as either "Summary" or "Scene." The title at the top of the page reads, "Story two outline." I have this character, in this story, who eventually needs to end up at his apartment, but later that evening, so that he can catch his wife bouncing on top of the neighbor. But how? I am so hollow of ideas that the air streaming down from the ceiling-fan is stealing all of my attention; the bumps on the walls are more interesting than anything I can think of. I'll just avert my attention to the other screen, the one with all the flat people and the commercials. One of my favorite shows is playing, one of the few pieces of gold stuck to the dark walls of television, and one of the characters is sporting new hair-plugs. He is in a wheelchair, however, because his body is rejecting the hair-plugs, and he falls from a balcony. I laugh and the computer shakes with my stomach, but then I think back again to the idea of hair-plugs. Of course! My character should look into hair-plugs; that would take up some time before he goes home. I write it down in my bullet list. Once again, however, I am stuck behind the last thing I wrote. What does he do now? Checking out hair-plugs wouldn't take that long. He would probably just do it online. I look back to the television. A commercial for Budweiser comes on and reminds me of my own bottle sitting next to me on the night stand. I take a huge sip, expecting a long night of no ideas, and it comes to me. A bar. Of course, how could I not think of that? He's going through a mid-life crisis, he'd be drinking. I'll just have him go to a bar. I type it down, next to the black diamond, next to the blinking cursor. I need one more thing; he's gotta get home at like, seven or eight. One more thing. Fifteen minutes pass and another episode of the same show begins. I can't take this.

"Colleen," I say in a questioning tone, "I need you to help me."
She turns from her desk in a black office chair, her lap covered in overly-highlighted accounting test papers, and says, "What?"
"I have a guy in this story; he's a bit introverted, but not overly shy, he likes sports, but just watching them, and he works with computers,

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