Speculate

Speculate

Hey, you! You with the radio on! Yeah, you. I want to tell you about something. It’s important. It won’t take too long.
         It’s about that woman you noticed the other day – remember, when you were at lunch and she walked past? She had to squeeze by your seat.

Remember how when you glanced up at her, it took you a little longer than usual to revert back to you normal, lunch time self? Something about her seemed out of place. There was something going on, you were sure of it. You began to speculate.
         Then you recognised what the situation must be. She was rushing back to work. The abnormality you’d noticed was her nervousness. You realised that it was because the man she had been eating with was not her partner. He was the third wheel in her relationship, her lover. Her partner had just called, inviting her to join him for lunch. She’d so hurriedly scraped by you because she was rushing back to work to meet him for what would be her second midday meal.
         Then you realised – remember? – that wasn’t the case at all. It was actually her partner that she’d been dining with before distractedly asking you to excuse her. She’d just broken the news to him that they couldn’t be together any more. He’d taken it badly; he’d seen no signs of this coming. After a chain of awkward moments she’d left, feeling as though she was staggering as her hip knocked your chair. She forced a polite “Excuse me,” over her shoulder as she began to walk faster, wondering where to go now. To her sister’s?
         No, no, you had admonished yourself. That was not it at all. The truth was obvious. The rush in her gait? The quick, nervous glances at her surrounds? The automatic, in fact nearly robotic apology as she bustled by you? It all pointed to only one thing: She was an under cover agent from outer space and her cover had almost been blown. You’d noticed the alien communications device she’d been carrying, disguised as a high-tech mobile phone. She must have just received the alert to abandon the assignment. No doubt they were investigating the spread of the dangerous plant known here on Earth as broccoli. Unbeknownst to our extraterrestrial neighbours, the plant had been accidentally dispersed to a number of other planets in our galaxy many years ago, due to a quarantine error. When their pre-rescue enquiry module had arrived on Earth, they were astounded to find that broccoli, the until now galaxy-wide poisonous vegetable, had become part of the homo sapiens nutritional cycle. The so-called woman who had jostled past you, you finally realised, had been exploring how far into the cycle the broccoli had infiltrated before receiving the urgent message from base to abort the mission for her own safety. Its own safety.
         Of course. It all made sense.

Okay, are we back from the land of memories now? Yes? Good. Yes, that’s the woman I was talking about. The reason I wanted to speak to you is this: I know what she was doing. I know why your glance lasted a little longer than usual.
         She was having lunch, a pasta meal, and reading a book at the same time. Engrossed in the pinnacle of the story, she wasn’t paying much attention to her fork-mouth coordination. As a result, her eyes racing over the typed climax, a saucy pasta shell collided with her lower lip and dislodged from her fork, following a narrow parabola before making squelched landing on her thigh, just above the knee. Finally, it bounced again and slipped down her calf. She grabbed a serviette, climactic suspense ruined, and tried to mop up the red substance, leaving a rosy splat on her skirt, and bent over to repeat the action with her calf and dirtied sock.
         That’s when she noticed.
         She got up and quickly headed home to change, glancing about self consciously as she brushed by you.
         She was wearing odd socks.