Plot is Passing the Butter

At our house, we have a little game at dinner. When someone asks for something to be passed (like the butter), the person next to her says, “Of course,” and then passes it on the most circuitous route possible, to the person on the other side, all around the table, back and forth, and only finally does the butter arrive at last to the person who asked for it.

Then everyone at the table laughs because we have all stopped eating to watch this little game of misdirection. We watch the butter as it goes from wrong person to wrong person. We are fascinated by the twists and turns, by the wild throw over the head of the waiting butter-lover, by the dance on top of chairs, and the grins on the faces of all the conspirators who are doing this completely spontaneously and for no other reason than because this is the way that butter was created to be passed.

The taste of butter is never sweeter or smoother than when you have waited for it as you watch others tease you with it, and when you spend five minutes wondering if you will ever get it, if your food will be cold by the time it reaches you.

This, my friend, this is plot. You think that plot is the arrival of the butter on your plate. It isn’t. Plot is the play of those around you as they tease you with the glimpse of the butter, with the smell of it as it almost reaches you, with the hope that the butter will soon be yours, as you leap for it, almost touch it, perhaps get a smear of it on your elbow. This is plot. Not the end of the journey, but the hijinks and play of the journey itself.