can you write the time?

So. I've had a bunch of conversations this week about what it means to be creating locally but with an international vocabulary

I'm at the coffee shop reading a recent draft of a script Eric is writing for our loose adaptation of Antigone. A small man with a smooth walking stick, white hair, black rimmed glasses sits at the table next to me and we talk.

Is that a computer?
Yes.
What company do you work for?
I don't work for a company.
Where is the company based?
I don't work for a company?
Where are you from?
I'm from the United States.
People are rich there.
Some people are. There may be a lot of money in the country but not everyone sees it.
Do you think it is by god or by chance?
What?
That some people have much or some people have little?
I don't know.
But you think about it and you tell me. Is it by god or by chance?
So, I do. He leans in to hear, his face down and when I am done, saliva falls from his mouth like a blessing as he sits up to meet my gaze.
What's your tote?
I don't know.
Maybe you don't understand my question.
You are asking me about a totem - an image or an animal or thing that a community holds sacred.
No. That you can't touch. What's your tote?
Um...
Is blood or milk thicker?
Blood, I think.
And we all have blood. And the breath you cannot see. See, you have sat here, I have sat here, we have started a conversation and we have not abused each other.
Yes, the body of our conversation.
Is it god or chance?
I don't know.
Who knows?
And the woman who is dating his nephew comes to take him. He says, give me your number. And now write the date. And the time.
Did I miss his name or forget it?

The international conversation is not the universal conversation. Unless somehow the untranslatable is part of the vocabulary.