What follows is true.
The scene: A neighbourhood sandwich shop on a major thoroughfare, early afternoon on the first Friday in June.
A man walks in, feeling somewhat cranky from his morning and orders a bowl of vegetable soup and an italian bun. Not terribly hungry, he wants a light lunch but mostly craves a few moments to gather his thoughts at the end of a busy and unsettling week.
As he walks into the shop, he notices the tiny table on the stoop was unoccupied and, kindle in hand, retreated to this oasis of solitude. He loves the city precisely because he knows that one can most easily disappear in its bustling busy-ness. The sandwich shop is quite full so he is pleased at his good fortune in finding the quietest table, set among the automobile traffic and hustle of pedestrians.
If he was to utter a sound, it would be "Aah" as his kindle springs to life.
He dives undisturbed into the last 20 pages of his book, wondering if he'll be able to squeeze out the time to finish it while in this urban Xanadu.
He realizes as he is reading that he has not even removed his BB from his pocket, as is his habit, smiles at this guilty feeling of truancy. He's out.
Nice.
Reading.
Aah.
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"
I'm sorry?
"Is this seat taken?"
Now you may think you know what feelings this question generated, but you'd be wrong.
You'd be wrong because among this man's skills, foremost is the ability to drown out minor urban annoyances like honking horns, distant jackhammers and sirens. In fact, the man would not hesitate to admit he takes comfort in the din, knowing as he does how it merely encapsulates him further in a cocoon of oneness.
"Be my guest," he replies without a hint of displeasure, fully expecting his new table-mate to pull out a sports page, e-reader or sudoku puzzle.
Prepared to share the tiny table, on the sidewalk of a busy street, the man returned to his faithful kindle. (The kindle, being a first generation behemoth, was barely able to fit on the table but that is a tale for another day.)
When his soup was ready, the man left his kindle and proceeded to the counter to pick up the bowl and accompanying italian bread, returned to the petite table on which rested said Bunyonesque kindle, settled back into his seat and dove into the soup and book.
All was, at this point, well.
It was at this moment that the new companion chose to pull out his cell phone and place a call to a colleague on a matter relating to a construction project about which they were both concerned but in which our man had absolutely no interest.
He frowned slightly at the interruption of the white noise but the call was concluded soon enough and that was that.
Until the next call 3 minutes later when it happened again.
Another frown and thankfully this call was also a short one.
You see, dear reader, it is far easier to ignore a cityscape of background noise than it is the intrusion of one cretin on a cell phone, seated 30 inches away.
However, both calls, while annoying in nature, were mercifully short in length.
Sadly, the phone calls were but like the initial shots on Fort Sumter that were followed by the interminable war between the states.
The intruder was soon called to the counter to collect his sandwich and our man gulped down as much scalding soup as he could during his absence, sensing disaster.
The intruder returned, sat down with his veal. Our man returned his attention to his reader. And then, it happened.
"So, what you reading?"
A chill went down the man's spine that his great-grandchildren will feel one day.
He realized at that moment that he had been duped. He had actually allowed a small-talker into his life for the next few minutes, or as long as it would take to down the remaining minestrone.
"Is that a kindle?"
Yes.
"Huh. You like it?"
Yes.
"Is it better than the one Amazon makes?"
The kindle is made by Amazon.
"Oh right but aren't they coming up with a new one soon?"
I don't know. There's always a new one around the corner on this stuff.
"Yeah, that's true. Hey, did you see whose car that is over there?"
No.
"Mel Lastman."
Oh.
"Yup. Just walked out of his car and went into that Tim Hortons."
How about that.
"I like that soup. I've had it before."
Nod.
At this point, the man was not even responding verbally, merely gesturing with his head without removing his eyes from the reader, and yet the assassin paid no heed. He spoke, blathered on endlessly on topics that were themselves killing brain cells as they rooted into our hero's mind.
And yet, in almost any social circle in this crazy world, were the man to get up and toss the interloper's Coke into his face, purely in self-defence of brains cells, it is the man who would be charged as having committed an act of incivility at a minimum.
There is no justice.
In fact, just as the man began to imagine the Coke splashing across Gomer's Casino Rama golf shirt, the rube took matters into his own hands... and spilled said coke across the tiny table and right into the man's lap.
At that point, as you would expect, lunch concluded.
The man got up, returned his remaining soup to the counter, grabbed his massive kindle and headed back to his blissful office, where he knew his assistant would allow him to bask in silence for the rest of the afternoon.
For the record, every word of this is true.
Thank you for your kind attention.
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