Where is everyone?

(Tumbleweed and the smell of fear, blowin through the blog-o-sphere)



So I’ve been killing time in a silly little French café down the street from Paddington station run by two old sisters with identical, unironical hairdos serving plates of lukewarm spaghetti with a super shiny meatsauce, mushroom omelets and chips, horseradish and mayo in silver finger bowls. After 5 the mysterious Algerian cook in the back who understands my English but won’t speak it back to me starts making highballs absurdly garnished with glittery swizzle sticks. These are for cocktails, I shout, why would you put this in a highball, I don’t get it. I sigh and take the festive little stick out of the drink and give it a desultory toss onto the table. Is this really happening—am I wasting away in a French dive in the middle of London, so high I can barely walk, watching the tall suits stooping to make it through the low-ass doorway, watching them snap open the paper like the big dick kings that they are, watching their eyebrows like furry caterpillars, watching their wallets as they absentmindedly take them from their silk lined pockets and place them on the table.