“So, you want to be a poet, eh, Marco?” The old man leaned forward with interest in the dim moonlight of the café terrace, swirling the last bit of brandy around in his glass with no immediate intention of drinking it.
“It's not that I want to become a poet, as if I wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer,” Marco replied. “Because a poet isn't what you would consider a vocation. It's just that I rather enjoy writing poems and little songs. It's a great challenge to put a human experience … to transfer life into words … to articulate your feelings …”
“Ah, good,” the old man replied. “Perhaps you have a chance, then, of being a real poet. It has to be a sincere desire on your part. Poetry … is something that you cannot pretend. You can pretend to be other things, but there is no room in the world for a bad or false poet. When you cease to feel what you write, when it no longer comes from within, but you are only writing empty words that mean nothing to you, then you are not a poet and you should stop trying to be. It is a sensitive and fragile art.”
“Yes,” replied Marco. Then there was a long silence. The two had been sitting at a table on the terrace for over an hour. The man, whose last name was Khalibash, had drunk a glass of red wine and now was finishing his second brandy. He swirled it around in the glass a while longer before taking another sip. Marco had drunk two pints of beer. The old man had paid for them. It was well past midnight, but it seemed later than it was. The café, which closed promptly at 1 a.m., was still doing a light business.
The old man and the youth were the only ones on the terrace. There were more people inside the café, where a mediocre trio played 1940s jazz and the murmur of conversation punctuated by occasional laughter drifted outside. But they were oblivious to the sounds inside. Their thoughts were directed within and away.
(This is the beginning of a 3,700-word short story)
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