Chapter 1 – These Dreams

The walls here at Silver Heller & Edison, LLP are plastered with movie posters, blown up book covers, patents, and product advertisements. Tonight, the hallways are dark and quiet except for the sound of the furious typing and the bright fluorescent light emanating from this barren and tiny, windowless room.  

This is not an office; most likely once a storage room or maybe a janitorial closet. For a place that represents the most inspired people in the world, the only thing my office inspires is hopelessness. Maybe that’s the point: let the creatives do things on their own terms, we get work done when we’re here. And we do one thing, and one thing well: we protect ideas.  

But as I sit here at my tiny desk, hacking away on my keyboard, I am doing everything but getting any of my work done – at least nothing that matters. 

Instead, just my latest installment of self-pity: 

Empire of Dreams 

Los Angeles is a place for dreamers. No matter where they come from, they come here to make their dreams come true, to build their own castle in the Empire of Dreams.  

For most, their singular passion is not enough. For others, they recreate their passions over and over again, building kingdoms of expression that succeed by persistence as much as might. Their art is a never-ending pursuit that manifests itself across nearly every medium, even those not typically appreciated as the creative endeavors that they are.  For them, everything is art and so everything they do is an expression of their creative drive.

Satisfied is a state of being not many in L.A. have an opportunity to enjoy. Those with kingdoms within the Empire seem like the only ones able to sit and gaze upon their creations with satisfaction.    

At only 26, Pat Eaton was beginning to doubt that he could build a castle, much less a kingdom. He would be resigned, instead, to occupying a corner, hoping to satisfy his artistic desires by hawking the works of others.  

Those others being the same satisfied, real creators, real artists, who maintained their child-like awe of the world around them and reproduced it in their own beautiful way. That awe was ever-present growing up, but Pat was increasingly becoming more certain he left it behind when he moved from his small hometown in search of more inspiration. Perhaps, really just seeking access. Or, maybe, just looking for an escape. 

 Nonetheless, there wasn’t much Pat did not accomplish. But what if he could not accomplish this? Really, his only dream.  

Clouded with doubt, his mind still would not let him explore the answer to this question until he had exhausted every effort to defy the seemingly inevitable course toward failure.    

For now, however, Pat would resign himself to operating his corner of the empire as he continues to press forward toward achieving his dream. More accurately, Pat works as a law clerk in the Law Offices of Silver Heller & Edison, LLP, a boutique intellectual property law firm that represented some of the biggest names in entertainment and writing, the latter being Pat’s passion. The bread and butter of the firm was, of course, however, securing and prosecuting patents for new technology.  

Wide-eyed to the irony that the attorneys at Silver helped protect the ideas of those who could design the artificial intelligence that would make lawyers obsolete, Pat continued his work as a means of immediate survival and a last-ditch effort to build something meaningful within the Empire of Dreams.   

That is not the memo I’ve been trying to finish. 

My dad used to tell me, “if you can’t do it, make yourself do it.” It may not sound like much, but it’s the best piece of advice my dad ever gave me.   

The point is, sometimes you just have to start doing the thing you have to do. So, when I can’t write, I just write. I write anything. Sometimes it’s just words. Sometimes a journal entry. And sometimes, it’s – whatever the fuck that was. I sound like an asshole if I call it an allegory, don’t I? 

So maybe the point is, sometimes I get carried away. And sometimes, I just really don’t want to do the fucking thing I have to do. What I think I have to do.  

And well, yeah…I’m Pat. Eaton. You know what, I hate talking about myself. I’ll just write: 

Pat is thin with black rimmed glasses over his brown eyes rimmed, themselves, with green. His light brown flop of hair is messy from his stress tic of constantly running his hands through his hair as if trying to pull thoughts out of his head. His ears are covered with large headphones, and he is dressed in the “business-casual-hipster” look he had adopted sometime during his 1L year at UCLA Law Scho   

Bzzz. Bzzz. 

Jorge’s texting.  

I take my headphones off to focus but sing along to Modern Life is War, still faintly playing out of the padded speakers: 

See, I’m just a factory worker’s son from a railroad town. 
And yeah, I can feel the steel mill rust. 
But I’ve been doing my time  
and I’ve been thinking about getting out.   
I’m running fast the other way, down a narrow dead-end road.  
I know this won’t be the last time I sing:  
“These dreams will be my anchor.  
These dreams will be the death of me…” 

Alright, focus! Focus! I tell myself. 

Focus. 

Fuck it. 

Pat 

Not gonna make dinner. Finishing up a memo for a new biotech startup we got. I’ll make drinks. First round on me. Cuervo, not Patron. 

Jorge 

Who the hell needs a memo at 7 on a Friday? I bet they’d appreciate a shot more. Patron, not Cuervo. And I thought Silver did entertainment shit. Isn’t that your thing? 

Fuck it. You’re right. See you soon.