Present: And then I woke up and I was...here?
Future: Ohhhh so that's why you're so confused.
Present: Yeah! Cuz I mean as much as the whole come lay on my couch and answer my questions thing is cliched, it's actually kind of nice, but also really fucking confusing. Like I have no idea how i got here.
Future: Well, what if you're still dreaming?
Present: Like a dream within a dream? Like Inception?
Future: Kind of. But like this is the intermediary space. Like how Dumbledore meets Harry in King's Cross when Voldemort kills him in the woods?
Present: So I have to decide whether I want to keep sleeping and stay here or I wake up and leave?
Future: I guess? I don't really know, the rules are kind of up to you.
Present: Just like Dumbledore told Harry.
Present: So am I Harry Potter then? Am I like the boy who lived? Is there something I'm supposed to do?
Future: Hold on, lemme check...nope, no lightning bolt scar. Hmm...I dunno, what do you think you're supposed to do?
Present: Um....I mean I've always wanted to tell stories? And I've slowly kind of been realizing that that's what's going to make change for me? Like if I tell stories, if I tell people's stories with them, then maybe I can help to change the way we all perceive one another. And then maybe we can stop killing ourselves and our world and make things better by working together.
Present: (beat) Like the theme song?
Future: Yeah of course. C'mon man.
Future: It's all good. But ok, then that's what you're supposed to do. That's your Harry Potter-King's Cross Station-Realization. You've gotta tell stories. So what stories do you want to tell?
Present: Well, I always thought that seeing more people like me on TV would change the way I had grown up. Cuz most everyone I saw who looked like me was kind of othered in some way. Or we just were there for a splash of color while everything else happened, or we just worked as a plot device. That's basically how all POC were in media.
Present: I mean Black Panther flipped it and the white people were the plot devices.
Future: Well what about Bend it Like Beckham? Or Kal Penn on How I Met Your Mother?
Present: Bend it Like Beckham is a classic. But we don't get those very often. And Kal Penn got famous making movies about him and John Cho smoking weed. I feel like he gets a pass now.
Present: Like he gets to do whatever he wants because now brown people are like oh, ok, I guess you do that.
Future: Do you think brown people fuck with him?
Present: Depends on the demo? Like I think young brown people do, but older brown people? They probably hate on him on principle cuz they think weed is bad.
Future: Cuz weed's a drug, and drugs are bad so Kal Penn = weed = bad.
Present: Yeah. Basically.
Future: So who you tryna be then? Do you wanna be Kal Penn or the girl from Bend it Like Beckham?
Present: Do I have to be one of them?
Future: I mean you've got lots of options. Have you seen how much stuff gets made in India? You wanna go somewhere you can be like white people, you should go there.
Future: Well in India, everyone's mostly brown, right? So all the movies are mostly brown people, right?
Present: I mean, I guess. I haven't really watched a ton of Indian movies or TV.
Future: Me neither. Maybe that's not the best thing for us to talk about.
Present: Yeah...but ok, Why can't I just be me?
Future: I don't know. Can you just be you? Do you know who you are?
Present: I don't know. I'm figuring it out though. Every day I get a little closer to it I think, but also farther away because we're all always changing you know?
Future: So maybe you want to write stories about that.
Present: About how we're always changing?
Future: Yeah. I mean we're always becoming who we are right? There's like this inevitable unending process of becoming that we are constantly undergoing as human beings.
Present: Maybe we should be human becomings. Why aren't we human becomings?
Future: Because that doesn't roll off the tongue the same way - I don't know. What I'm trying to say though is that everywhere we go, everyone we meet, they impact who we are. It might be a tiny little microimpact or it might be something hugely monumental that echoes throughout the rest of our lives, but it does change us - those experiences in those places with those people help to make us who we are. So maybe talk about that.
Present: Ok but where do I start?
Present: What do you mean?
Future: The beginning and the end are irrelevant.
Present looks at future confused.
Future: Look, the important thing is that the stories get told. Don't get lost in the minutia of when something happened in relation to something else, in the end you can just use time as a plot device too. Kind of like you're doing now.
Present: What? What do you mean kind of like you're doing right now?
Future: You and I aren't really here. You and I are having a conversation in a dream that you've needed to have with yourself for a long time. So now that you're having this conversation, you've gotta just go out and do it. Go tell the stories you want to tell. And don't let anyone stop you.
Present: But what about -
Future: Dad and Mom will get it. It'll take a long time, but they will. How else you think I have this beard and haircut?
Present: Wait so you're really me in the future?
Future: Yeah you could say that, I'm one possibility.
Present: On possibility? What about the others?
Future: I dunno, you'll have to keep moving down the path of your life to see how we turn out.
Future: Oh - looks like I gotta go. I'm around though. And you're gonna be fine. Don't worry. Cheers mate!
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