Playing Chinese checkers with papercups on a windy Friday June evening, under palm trees with mosquitoes biting bare legs. It should’ve rained but still it held our interest, and after all peoplewatching is a noble way of passing time, especially wtih coffee. Torn packs of sugar on the table, brown sugar, white sugar, cream, heavy cream, light cream… These days, everything is in a convenient, easy-to-open pack, from sugar to spirituality to kismet, just tear along the dotted lines. A slice of banana bread waiting to be eaten, but no one dares touch it so it walks away from the table, quite desolately, I observe, prompting raucous laughter from the whole table, and from there, craning necks up to seek the man in the moon, all the sounds of the night blend into Billie’s prophetic verses, wafting to us from the open doors of the café: Them that’s got shall have, Them that’s not shall lose, So the Bible said and it still is news, Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that’s got his own, That’s got his own
