rec room home | 90 MINUTE CHALLENGE!
the listener
by Miki Howald
Were the last 90 minutes of the planet to have occurred on the night of November 1, you would have found us taking up space
at Black Rock, a few of us spread out around the tables, others lounging on the sofas, soaking up the fire. Were it the truly
the final minutes of the planet we would never have known that less than a week later the Democrats would take back the House,
Senate and the Statehouses. We'd never have been around long enough to see an Onion headline declaring, "Politicians Sweep Midterm
Elections!" and we wouldn't be around to wonder if all these new faces will actually equate change. Everything would have
ended right that night, that theme--ended in a silence and the faint tapping of fingers on keyboards and pens on paper. It would
have ended with all of us enjoying the camaraderie we felt as writers and lovers of words, the appreciators of an impromptu turn
of phrase, of hearing a new voice.
Thank you, Idris, and thank you, Erin, for providing us this impetus to get off our writing asses and to produce. The evening
was an enlightening final 90 minutes--both in its uncertainty of the future and in the certainty of our communion. Had that really
been the end it would have been quite an end--not a bang, not Eliot's whimper, but a satisfied high five.
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