My dear friend Sanna is sitting on the couch beside me while a still image of the Earth taunts us on the television. She will be leaving me soon for the cooler climes of the Swedish summer. I will miss her greatly, so I will continue to deny that she is leaving me until her parents fly all the way out here to retrieve her.
Also, I am going to completely ignore the fact that I am completely changing direction here.
His knees are set wide, arms resting on the table and chair that flank him. He looks up, directly in my direction, but hangs his head again to think. There is nothing in his hands, but he toys the air or the wrinkles on his knuckles with circular precision. Even when he stretches, his shoulders remain square with military precision. Who is this man? He takes his wafer-thin frame and umbrella and walks out, watching the occupants with a mouth cracked open in thought. He'd only left for a smoke, which I learned about twenty minutes later when he came back in and asked me about my leather, Scaramanga bag. It was at this point I discovered he didn't speak English very well, nor could he read it at all. I offered to give him the address, but he declined; not only could he not read, he didn't have a computer, though he called it an internet. A very confusing conversation ensued in which I thought he was asking how to protect again internet hackers when in fact he merely wanted to ensure no one could access his computer when he wasn't using it. He suggested taking out the battery. Instead of getting my work done, I became this man's personal researcher. I looked up various things, such as the top three cities in Europe (Vienne, Zurich, Geneva), the religions of Austria and Switzerland (Roman Catholic, none), the population of North Dakota, Fargo, and Grand Rapids (600,000; 200,000; 600,000), where to get a watch in GR, where to get new dentures in GR, and a few other things I have forgotten. I felt pity for him, living in a country whose language he couldn't read, so I continued to google these things for him, making small talk, and get absolutely nothing done on my work.
He eventually left to catch the bus to get more tobacco and I went off to get groceries for the first time in four weeks.
