Overheard
The waiter skulked off to find my soup. “really busy” he said. There were maybe 12 people in the restaurant. It wasn't busy. I leant back in my chair. A group of men and women, maybe a couple and their friends, sat on a large table ten feet away. I could hear bits of conversation here and there. The usual fare. The waiter reappeared, apologised again and told me he would go and see what was happening with my soup. I silently wished him well on his quest.
The only man on the table across from me wore a brown trilby. If he was father to any of the children I couldn't tell. It was probably not a reasonable thing to ask.
Maybe he knew I was listening to his conversation or perhaps he wanted me to hear his story. Either way, he glanced over and smiled at me then turned back to the two women. “I was riding a bus in New York and I saw a llama out the window”
“I said to the man next to me - there's a llama walking down the street….He turned to me and said - whaddya wan me to do aboudit ?
“Do you know the difference between a llama and an alpaca?”
He was asking the two women.
“No, what is it?”
“I don't know, that's why I'm asking”
All three then started an internet search. Surely a size thing I thought but didn't want to call over.
What about the llama?
He hadn't spotted the tiny woman, hidden on the other side of the llama. Her skin was old, creased by ancient winds and sun. She had with her a small boy, too young to be her son, tucked into a pouch on the llamas pack. They stopped at a door that seemed out of scale to the huge skyscraper it served. She made to go in.
“No llamas”
The doorman frowned, seemingly looking for a sign to back up his statement.
The woman smiled and took off her travel hat, tucking it into her skirt. She opened a pocket in the pack on the llama and reached inside. She placed a small number of dark seeds into the doorman’s hand, speaking rapid but bad Spanish. His stiffness softened as he pieced words together. His eyes glistened with nostalgia as he recognised seeds from his homeland. He stared at them still as the woman, llama and boy walked past and into the building.
The lobby to the bank was enormous, busy-looking people moving like ants. The lifts stood at the back, guarded by more security. The old woman looked them up and down. A man approached the lift. The two security moved to stand in front of him. After much gesticulating the man gave up and walked past the llama group and back out of the building.
They decided to take the stairs.
It was many floors up before they stopped on the landing, looked around and entered an enormous office. There were rows and rows of desks, monitors glowing bright, a jumble of voices. It didn't seem a friendly place. They walked forward none the less, drawing disapproving looks and whispers but no-one said hello. No one said anything to them. They found their way to a large glass office, separate from all the desks they had wound through. The old woman reached for the handle and opened the door. Inside, around a large polished table, sat twelve men in suits.
The murmur of voices stopped and their eyes turned to the intruders.
“Yes?” said the man at the head of the table.
“Si?” Said the old woman.
The man looked around at the other men. Seeing that no-one had anything else to add he glanced once more at the strange travellers then started talking again to the board members.
The old woman reached into the llama’s pouch and pulled out a small roll of material. As she opened it a pungent aroma filled the air. From another pocket she pulled out what looked like dried dung and placed it in a bowl. She lit the small fire then added water and the herbs to a small pot where they simmered. She sang a low, slow song as she poured the tea into a large bowl, then stood and offered it to the nearest man.
It was clear he did not want to drink but he put the tea to his mouth and then swallowed. He grimaced after and put the bowl down. She smiled and gestured at him so that he understood he was to pass it around. All of the men were to drink the tea. So they did.
Some time later there hung a faint smell of tobacco in the boardroom. The new chair of the board smiled and the wrinkles on her face gathered up around her eyes. Around her the board members smiled back.
The llama and the boy stopped by an old man begging by a busy road. The llama bent its neck down and nuzzled the man gently. He looked up. Pain slowly cleared from his eyes as he stood, put on a coat that might serve for travel and began to walk slowly but purposefully beside the llama.
Thanks for reading this.
I wanted to write something that was, well, a little more optimistic. I had been thinking about writing a short story for a while but nothing was coming. The opening conversation from the restaurant was real and the guy in the trilby really did look over before he started his short story about the llama. Sometimes stories come to you.
Merry Christmas to you all and thank you for sparing some of your time to read these pieces.
See you next year.