KEY ONE

Imagine your ideal scene.

Many years ago, with the help of a few friends, I started my own business. We were like most founders of small businesses: full of dreams, but short of concrete business experience; full of ideas, but short of cash. We were overworked and underpaid. We were overwhelmed much of the time, and seriously undercapitalized.

We had a great many vague ideals, but had never written a mission statement. We had high hopes, but had never written a business plan.

We set up a small office and furnished it with the bare necessities to take care of business. All three of us continued to work at other jobs, part-time, and poured as much cash as we could into our little start-up. All of our savings (which wasn't much) went into the company. A few friends and relatives invested along the way, and a few others loaned us money. But the money always went quickly, and we were continually strapped for cash.

For those who loaned us money, we made a clear payment schedule, and we made those payments a priority. But that brought with it more pressures to pay more out every month.

For those who invested, we promised a share of ownership in the company. They would become stockholders and officially own some portion of something, as soon as we got around to incorporating. But month after month passed, and we never got around to setting up a corporation. We were too swept up in the vast number of never-ending daily details that had to be handled to be able to step back and do any long-term planning.

One of our first employees quit; he said there was too much stress in the company and too little security. He didn't want to worry about whether his paycheck would be good every pay period. I couldn't blame him; he wasn't getting paid enough to deal with the level of anxiety in that little office. None of us were, but at least those of us who were owners had the possibility of having something of value in a distant, vaguely fantasized future.

My other job was flexible freelance work I was able to do right in my office, so I was there nearly every day, but I always had the feeling that I needed to give my little start-up more hours than I could give it. Everything was constantly behind schedule; we kept missing important deadlines we needed to make in order to get our projects done on time.

I always tried to get out of the office in the morning and again in the afternoon for at least a brief walk. I usually found some kind of errand that needed to be run, or sometimes I would just walk around the block. I needed to get out of that confined, cluttered space to do some thinking, to clear my head of the endless details that threatened to overwhelm me at times.

ONE MORNING, AS I LEFT THE OFFICE, I saw an old man sitting on a bench across the street. He caught my eye because he was motionless, gazing into space ... an old man, far away. When I came back from my walk, he was sitting in exactly the same position. Apparently he hadn't moved a muscle. He was looking in the general direction of our office, but his gaze seemed way beyond any specific focus.

His eyes and facial expression reminded me of something, but I couldn't remember what. It was quiet, reflective. Maybe there was a touch of sadness — but maybe that was just my projection. There was definitely a touch of humor. He looked familiar, but I couldn't remember why.

I saw him a few times after that, always sitting in the same position. I don't think I ever saw him move. I wondered if he was waiting for something — a ride? Godot? Nothing?

He looked so familiar ... then I remembered where I had seen those eyes, and that expression: on the Yoda doll on my dresser — the Jedi master from the Star Wars movies. The old man was striking in his silence and stillness.

THEN ONE DAY he came strolling through the door of our little office. I seem to recall it was a beautiful spring day, though I hadn't paid much attention to it. My attention had been on the crisis of the day. I don't even remember now the particular crisis — each day had its own problems. About all we were doing was crisis management: dealing with one demanding situation after another.

He breezed in the door, uninvited and certainly unexpected. He was wearing a brown old-man suit, with brown shoes — quite conservative dress. Nobody knew who he was. He stood there, hands in his pockets, and carefully looked around the office. He looked as if he almost expected us to welcome him, as if he had an appointment with someone.

He had sharp features, and his wavy white hair was combed straight back, with a substantial amount of gel. His skin seemed taut on his face; he was old, but it was impossible to tell his age. At first it looked like he didn't have a wrinkle on his face, but as he turned into the light, I could see his delicate skin was covered with fine lines.

I walked over to him.

"Can I help you?" I said.

"I don't know," he said with a smile. He held out his hand. "My name's Bernie."

I shook his hand; his fingers were long and delicate and cool. There was something warm and friendly about the old guy, something that immediately put me at ease.

"I'm Marc."

"Nice little business you've got here."

"Well, it's just a beginning, I hope."

"How long have you been in business?"

"Oh, we've had the office about six months, though we've been working on it for over a year now — no, wait, it's been almost two years now." I flushed, a bit embarrassed — where had the time gone?

"I like the way you've furnished the office."

He said it with a smile; I didn't know if he was kidding or not. The office furniture was a hodgepodge of the cheapest stuff we could find at flea markets and garage sales, with a few leftovers from our apartments thrown in. Our...