The reader at eleven

For most of the year I write for one reader. For the month that is expected to begin in a few days, depending on the sighting, there are two of them, and they are not the same person.

One is reading at five in the afternoon. He has been awake since before dawn, he has worked a full day, he is in traffic or standing in a kitchen, and he has nothing left. He is not hostile. He is spent. A sentence that asks him to think is a sentence asking for money he does not have on him.

The other is reading at eleven at night. He has eaten, the house is loud, there is coffee, someone has put a plate in front of him, the phone is in his hand and there is nowhere he needs to be. He will read three paragraphs. He will watch the whole thing. He will scroll the whole list and order for six people.

The same line goes to both of them, and the plan treats them as one audience.

So I sort copy by hour now, before I sort it by channel. What the five o'clock reader gets can only be service: the closing time, the last order, the address, how many minutes. No story, no cleverness, no offer that needs a decision made. Nothing that borrows a minute, because the minute is not his to lend.

Anything carrying an idea waits for eleven, when attention is not being rationed and generosity is the mood in the room.

The month does not shorten the day. It moves it. So the writing goes to eleven, and the five o'clock reader gets a closing time and his afternoon back.