nett cost

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 11 years ago

Walking down the street in the wake of three blokes as confident as three galleons. Their coats blow open. It’s a fresh sunny day. Something small flies off to the side & I follow it into the flowerbed: one of those tiny, slender plastic stirrers that have, to my mind, no excuse for existing in the first place when the good Lord has given us reusable Spoons. I pick it up. Talking to myself (“C’mon, c’mon, so they get angry, you’ll live”) I catch them up and speak to the centre galleon, whose billowing trail of steam indicates he has bought a coffee. “Entschulding. Ist das deine?” Excuse me, is this yours? He looks pained. “Ich werfe es in die Müll,” I tell him: I’ll drop it in the garbage. “Weil es so viel…” searching for the word and bailing out, “so viel netter ist.” Because that’s so much… nicer.

He sort of smiles. “Das ist ja sehr nett von Ihnen.” That is very… nice of you. “Danke,” he says. I say, “Danke,” and the small storm of distress in my heart lifts and blows away. Confirmed once again in the ancient prejudice that people are sweet and kind, we just get confused, we just need to keep reaching one another.