Again it was summer, again it was a park, again I was reading. Y'all know summer, y'all know parks, y'all know reading; imagine them here. Small drops of rain started to fall, hit everything and thus stop falling, quickly followed by further drops of rain, ad claudius rainium. It was light rain, warm rain, over soon rain; turn the book upside down to save the pages, close the eyes to create the semblance of doing something. Time passed, stopped passing, more time followed and did that passing thing.
"Hi, my name's Rusty Stilton from Topeka, Kansas; this is my wife, Bunny." Drawl? When I finally opened my eyes, I saw that it was, indeed, Rusty Stilton from Topeka, Kansas, and his wife, Bunny - or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Remaining silent for a moment, partly in awe that someone who looked so ignorant could speak with a semicolon, and more likely waiting for some oft-repeated clever continuation of this oft-repeated introduction. "She's also from Topeka, Kansas, but I'm from north Topeka and she's from south Topeka; we meet up once a month to have sex for money," or "We call her Bunny because she has big ears, lives in a hole underground and leaves little hard pellets of shit everywhere." I'd be put at ease by something like that and spring back with "I bet you call him Rusty because he's oxidised." They'd tell me curtly that wasn't the case, and that he was named after his war veteran dog who'd died of cancer the week before. We'd never speak again, but at least we'd know where we stood.
Rusty had no clever comment, so I lay in silence, looking up at them, then looking sideways at them as they sat down next to me. They were close enough to be sitting next to me, not sitting in the same park as me. Still time was passing, so I did the only thing I could: "Hi," and smiled emotionlessly - my facial muscles are well honed. I'd spoken so it was their turn; they'd told me their names and I hadn't so it was my turn. Silence ensued. Perhaps we might have been more comfortable with each other if we'd known more about each other. All they knew was that I wouldn't read in the rain, and all I knew was their names, their home town and that they had five children (t-shirts saying "We have five children: Dudgeon, Catarrh, Cubeb, Tzimmes and Merino." The back of Rusty's t-shirt said "Cubeb is dead" and Bunny's said "...and Tzimmes is as good as dead.")
More silence. It'd be rude of me to close my eyes, or read, so I just sat there looking around, sometimes making eye contact, wondering about who these people were and getting increasingly depressed at what I perceived to be their futile existence. They didn't seem close, they never smiled - not even emotionlessly - they just sat there looking around, sometimes making eye contact. Motive: dull life, staid, repetitive existence; pinnacle of human achievement: go to England, sit in a park and introduce yourself to someone. Pinnacle of human achievement: sit in a park, meet Rusty Stilton and his wife, Bunny.