June 15, 2010

• Dashing through the snow

  There had been a meaningless silence between the two gentlemen for nearly half an hour.  They looked out the window from their table in the small coffee shop, mindlessly viewing the pedestrian traffic as though it were a montage of robots.
  “I know it’s been awhile since the Civil War,” Tim began suddenly with a tone of confident skepticism, “but I still don’t trust them to not try it again.”
  Josh met Tim with a blank stare.  Tim in the meantime took a voracious bite of his bagel.
  “If I ever meet someone who eats bagels with a knife and fork, I will marry that person,” Tim declared while chewing.  “You know why?”  He swallowed with a huge gulp. ”Because I always keep my promises, and I just proimised that.”
  Several people sauntered past them toward the exit. Tim waited until they had passed, then continued.
  “Like the time a man asked me to watch his baby in his baby carriage for him while he was gone.  I watched that baby carriage. Watched it good and hard, as two men in shady clothing came up and took that baby carriage away.”
  Josh furrowed his brow.  He turned behind him to see if anyone else was listening.
  “Promises are important,” Tim went on.  “That’s why I only fall in love with girls I don’t talk to.”  Tim became glassy-eyed as he painted his thoughts onto the scene of scurrying pedestrians.  “If you talk to them, it’s like promising them something.  Besides, talking to them always ruins it anyway.  So breaking if off before then is really what’s best for them.  And since I really care for them, that’s what tends to happen.”
  Josh stared straight ahead, saying nothing. He thought back to an hour before when he had met Tim while standing in line.

  “Don’t get me wrong, falling in love is great,” Tim emphatically clarified. ”It just never works when it’s mutual.”
  A full minute passed as the two men reflected on this thought.
  “Sometimes I think that my friends are the only people I can trust to not care about me, and even they let me down sometimes,” Tim sighed.  “That’s what people do.  You become friends with them thinking they have a toaster, but they end up having a toaster-oven instead.  It’s just so hard to tell if people have sane beliefs about kitchen appliances from just a handshake.  Did the extra bob on that one mean this guy has a handheld blender?  So you take risks.”
  Tim’s eyes were full of crystals; he found it hard to fancy he was drinking coffee.   
  “And relationships are basically all about food anyway.  We know we need society in order to not live off crap.  So we fake friendships until we get in their kitchen where we can finally start shooting them evil looks while our chins run with marinara sauce.”
  “Dude,” Josh said abruptly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
  “Thank you!” Tim beamed. “So many people recognize I’m smart, without realizing that the important thing is that I’m right. So I appreciate that.”
  Josh looked down, concluding that it would have been better to have remained silent. Tim smiled as he looked out the window, finally satisfied that they had gotten somewhere.

  • 6:58 pm
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