Initiative

The Other John seemed kind of sad. I don't know why, but he just was acting gloomy.

I sat down at the lunch table one day with a plot in mind.

"Hey, John," I said, tossing him one of my folders full of loose-leaf paper, a black pen, and a red pen. "Draw me something."

I had noticed that The Other John hadn't been drawing lately. I hadn't seen one of his pictures since last year. So I figured I would give him a reason to.

He looked at it. "Did you steal this from somebody?"

"Yep."

"I've got to hide this. Somebody's going to kill me if they see me with this."

He took the folder and pens. He did begin to draw again in the next week, but he didn't use the folder. I'm not sure if he even used the pens. But at least he was drawing, and he didn't seem quite so gloomy anymore.