“No,” she said, “that’s what you say.  Imagining all-consuming creative collaboration that is all in your head.”  

“That is what I say,” he said, “its own reward.   And all-consuming creative collaboration has not always been in my own head.”  

“That’s what you say,” she said.  

“You keep saying that,” he said.  

“As you say,” said she.  

“Listen, I’ve been in rooms many times, people get swept up into working together, given the chance to be part of a creative team.  I’ve taken part, I’ve seen it, experienced it many, many times.”  

“You are a dreamer.  Nobody but you gives a rat’s creatively shaved buttock about creativity for its own sake.  Creativity that leads to more tangible things, OK.  But even there, it’s more a buzzword or catchphrase — creativity– than something anyone cares about for its own sake.  Anyone but a person like you.”  

“A person like me….” he said.  

“Show me the money, I’ll do something creative for you right now,” she said, “pay to play.  I’ll collaborate with you all day, if you got the green to make it worth my while, I’ll riff with you til the cows stop farting up into the ozone.  You know what I’m saying?   If your idea is so valuable why is nobody paying you for it?”  

“I really don’t see the point…” he said.  

“My point exactly,” she said. “it’s nothing to talk about excitement, you have to make me excited about it.”  

“Oh,” he said, reluctant to take her deeper point, “you’re the one I have to make excited about the excitement of my exciting idea.”  

“I am,” she said, “and I am but one of hundreds you need to excite.”   She was right, goddamn it, he thought.   She’s just the first hurdle in this two thousand hurdle race.  

“You have no idea how many more hurdles than that it is,” she said, reading his thoughts with an ease that struck him as supernatural.  

“Supernatural my ass,” she thought, “all I had to do was read the words off the screen.  This guy doesn’t even realize all this is just writing on a screen.”

“I know that,” he said, his bottom lip coming up to cover the upper one.