When I showed up at the café this afternoon, I could not find my subjects as usual. I asked the server at the beer tap, as he slid excess foam off a glass.
"You must be talking about the couple who sometimes spit to their faces in the heat of the moment. I had always felt lucky that the counter was not their preferred spot, because you see, they may spurt onto me. Yesterday, I don't know why, but they sat right here and talked about reenacting the meeting between Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone. They couldn't agree on who gets to play Stanley and say "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." I saw foam in their mouths, so I had to ask them to find a table for themselves. Luckily, they obliged. After that, I don't know what happened."
It sounded a bit too excessive, even for them.
"Hey, I also heard two people talking about going to Lake Tanganyika." It was a customer, waiting for his glass of beer. "I thought they were a bit, you know... Anyway, they ended up sitting close to me. After being banished from the counter, the plan was changed to go to Asia instead and help rescue the disaster victims. But they couldn't decide whether to go to Myanmar or China. When I left, the talk had evolved into Theravada Buddhism versus Mahayana Buddhism, and further into individual versus society."
It surely sounded like them, but if they indeed had touched upon the last topic, they should still be at the café, possibly covered with foam. I turned around and asked a server who was carrying what looked like a banana and Nutella crêpe.
"You must be talking about the couple who sometimes spit to their faces in the heat of the moment. I had always felt lucky that the counter was not their preferred spot, because you see, they may spurt onto me. Yesterday, I don't know why, but they sat right here and talked about reenacting the meeting between Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone. They couldn't agree on who gets to play Stanley and say "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." I saw foam in their mouths, so I had to ask them to find a table for themselves. Luckily, they obliged. After that, I don't know what happened."
It sounded a bit too excessive, even for them.
"Hey, I also heard two people talking about going to Lake Tanganyika." It was a customer, waiting for his glass of beer. "I thought they were a bit, you know... Anyway, they ended up sitting close to me. After being banished from the counter, the plan was changed to go to Asia instead and help rescue the disaster victims. But they couldn't decide whether to go to Myanmar or China. When I left, the talk had evolved into Theravada Buddhism versus Mahayana Buddhism, and further into individual versus society."
It surely sounded like them, but if they indeed had touched upon the last topic, they should still be at the café, possibly covered with foam. I turned around and asked a server who was carrying what looked like a banana and Nutella crêpe.
"Oh, those guys. Yes, they were supposed to be here today, around this time, in fact. That's what I overheard. But yesterday, they argued over which tastes better on a slice of bread, Nutella or Marmite. I thought it was an inane argument, because one is sweet and the other savory. The discussion escalated into Continental Europe versus UK, rationalism versus empiricism, and so on. As they stood up to leave, they were talking about experimenting how many slices of bread they can have in one serving, with either Nutella or Marmite. If they did have a food competition, they may be suffering from indigestion. But I bet they'll be back. My hunch is in about three weeks or so, because they would probably have a few rounds of Nutella-Marmite competition."
This sounded most plausible to me.
This sounded most plausible to me.
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