Either Artifficially or Supernaturally

This is a picture of Hatti, who, with her partner Shaima, ran a small eatery in the East End on George Street. 

She was the victim of a brutal assault by a guest. The dining-room incident was famously (but incompletely) related by my friend Bob. The perpetrator was arrested and charged (he made bail the next morning). Hatti was taken to the hospital. A high-profile lawyer came to see her and they talked. The lawyer left and returned an hour later with a document and a check. Hatti signed the document and accepted the check. When two detectives took her statement later, she said that it all happened very quickly and that she didn't remember much.

Soon after Hatti and Shaima got married and, to everybody's surprise, sold up and moved to Lahore, Pakistan, where Shaima's father held an important government position. They opened "La Luna", the only Italian restaurant in the city, which turned out to be a great success. Due to family influence they didn't have to pay any bribes and open comments on their "unconventional" partnership were rare. Nevertheless, quiet rumors swirled and envy reared its ugly head.

One evening, near closing time, there was a knock on the delivery door, and Hatti found a produce box with the label of their supplier. This was unusual, as deliveries arrived in the morning. When she opened the box, a medium-sized cobra jumped out, bit her on the upper arm, and then slithered off into the darkness. Twenty-eight minutes later the ambulance arrived with the snake-venom antidote which was immediately injected. After a few hours Shaima received a call from the emergency doctor, who informed her that Miss Carroll had passed away and expressed their condolences: "For now's the time for your tears". The inquest determined that the antidote (produced by Zanzinger Laboratories, MD, USA) had expired in May 2019.

On Fun and Funny

This is Elke, a lawyer specialized in contracts. She was born Elke Dagmarsdottir in Iceland. Her mother, Dagmar, met her father, a Nigerian bass player, when his band spent time in Reykjavik. He left behind three children from three different women. Elke never knew him; the only thing she received was an email from him when she was in the tenth grade. He wrote that he was a Nigerian prince fallen on hard times but could still send her 40,000 Euros. Elke deleted the email and blocked the sender. Elke and Dagmar settled in Toronto, where she excelled in school and university: always top of her class, A+.

Friends loved her but made fun of her absolute zero sense of humor. They used to say that she debated like a "bull in a Chinese store." Elke would correct them, you mean "Bull in a China shop", right? And let’s drop the racial stuff. They'd say that she didn't have a boyfriend because she was in "prophylactic shock." With a serious face, she'd say that it would be anaphylactic shock if she had any allergies, which she didn't.

Regarding contract law, they'd ask how to find an "escape goat." Elke would be puzzled for a moment and retort that the party not performing as promised must be held accountable, but this is not scapegoating. She was always helping everybody. Once, when she was donating eggs for IVF, she fixed the contract they made her sign, correcting a major loophole and a bunch of minor errors pro bono.

At her coffee shop each morning, a tall athletic guy was getting his latte when she got hers. He eventually spoke to her. His name was Bob, and he was a philosophy major, played rugby for varsity, and wrote jokes for his many stand-up comic friends. They started dating, and she went to his games, where she winced whenever he went down on a hard tackle. She also went to comedy shows where she couldn't figure out why everybody was laughing but took her cue and laughed with them. Bob explained about timing, pause, and punchlines in jokes. She'd listen and say, "I don't always understand what you're talking about." To which Bob replied, "If you always understood everything I said, you would be me." Elke, who had never heard of Miles Davis, didn't recognize the quote but noticed the pregnant pause, so she laughed: faked it.

Difficult Assignment of Had and Was

This is Julio-Marco Quispe from Egersund, Norway. We had coffee, and he told me this story.

The other day, he came home, grabbed the laptop, and started writing. He had seen this girl in the subway, and they started talking. She wasn’t pretty, but she was tall, blonde, and had big breasts. She told him that she got off at Wellesley and asked if he wanted to come with her. "Sure!" he replied.

They entered a building on Maitland Street where she lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the ninth floor. She fumbled a little with the keys while unlocking the door, turned to him, and smiled. When they got in, she asked him to stay and told him to sit anywhere. Julio-Marco sat on the rug. The girl came from the kitchen with a bottle of tequila and two glasses. First, they had a lot of tequila, and then they had a lot of sex and then they fell asleep.

When they woke up they had more tequila and more sex. The girl said she worked in the morning and started to laugh. He told her he didn’t and went to the bath. They left together and went back to Wellesley Station, where they said goodbye.

Julio-Marco looked at what he wrote for a long time, then he sighed and deleted the story: it was silly and downright bad and he still needed the 1,500 words for next week’s writing assignment.

I told him my opinion: the story was indeed silly and downright bad, then I added that I was certain that he would come up with something better.