little bites

One of the advantages of taking work to the coffee place is conversation overheard, and then incorporating its meaning into my life (doesn't this sound more respectable than admitting I'm a gossip?)


The characters:  A boy, somewhere between eight and ten years old, and a woman, late teens/early twenties, who I guess to be his babysitter.


He is eating a cinnamon raisin bagel, coated with butter.  She is asking him questions that, to me, sound more appropriate for Kant than for a pre-pubescent boy.


And then, the question that tops them all.


"Does good ever prevail over evil?" she asks.


Don't do this to him, I want to say.  But I don't.  I watch and wait for his answer.


He chews, furrows his brow, gazes at the street, takes another bite.


Finally, he answers.


"This bagel is too big to eat in one bite."


Brilliant.  Whatever the question, this is the answer.


Today is a good day for little bites.  My summer cold is fading, I was up at dawn, hiked in a nearby gorge, began revising my manuscript, made reservations for another trip out of town.  


Yum.


Candace