PureVolume

when in moscow, do as the romans do. (a short story, i guess.)

there was something magnetically peculiar about the young lady who sat across from me at the eatery. she didn't exactly stick out like a sore thumb (infact, she was rather quite plain), but it was more or less the fact that her and i were the only ones in the restaurant with the exception of an elderly couple sitting two tables behind me and a large man in a suit muttering incoherently into his cellphone. she was very still. she had a slightly perplexed expression on her face and her head was tilted ever so slightly to the left as she examined her glass of water with her fingers spread and her hands flat on the table.

i could see a hint of concentration in her eyes, but her look was strikingly similar to that of an autistic child's staring at a particularly challenging sudoku puzzle or perhaps that of a confused and disoriented man pulling into his drive-way only to find the roof to his home had been torn off and taken away by giants. i approached her and asked her:

"what are you doing?"

she did not answer. infact she had not even bothered to look up or make any sign of response. instead, she continued to stare at her glass of water almost as if she was waiting for something to happen. i knelt down beside her and made an attempt to figure out exactly what she was staring at. upon first glance, i did not notice anything too unusual about this particular glass of water. there was a slight smudge of a finger print along the side of the glass (perhaps from the waiter who had served the glass earlier in the day) and the usual microscopic floating particles you generally find in most glasses of water you get served at such restaurants and eateries alike. but aside from those two things, there really was no apparent anomaly.

well. not to me, at least.


"my friends call me whiskers because i'm curious like a cat." - harry caray 1914-1998

finally, after five solid minutes of inspection, i decided i would try something. i took the glass in my left hand and swiftly took a half-way between a 'sip' and a 'gulp' and replaced the glass back onto the table. the young lady switched her gaze from the glass to my face as she surveyed me fixedly with the most intense, wide-eyed expression i had seen since that time i unintentionally spilled welch's grape juice on my mother's fourth generation family quilt when i was six.

"yes! i did it!" she announced.

"w-what!?"

"i did it. i made you drink the water!"

"... what! that's absurd. you did not!"

"oh yes i did. you just drank it, didn't you?"

"well. yes, but-"

"so i did make you drink it. yes!"

"no! i drank the water on my own accord."

"because?"

"...i-i don't know."

"because i made you. and that's that!"

"hardly. i was merely confused as to why anyone would stare at a plain old glass of water for that long and decided to find out for myself, that's all. and why were you, anyway? was there something in it?"

"yes. cyanide."

"...um."

"just kidding. my name's susan. pleased to meet you."

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