strange territory.
Richard began to reach across the table. Dave paused, then glared at his opponent, his hand creeping closer to its goal. They each looked sidelong at the remaining ginger nut, neither daring to move. An agonising minute crawled by with neither man daring to blink, staring down at the solitary focus of their attention. All around them the sounds of Victoria station echoed whilst eyes narrowed, staring like gunfighters in some spaghetti western waiting for the signal to draw.
The tension mounted; for a split second Dave’s grip loosened and his paperback slipped from his grasp. Richard dropped his newspaper and snatched. Dave’s hand was closer but slower off the mark.
Exploding crumbs skittered across the tabletop as they both recoiled from the suddenness of warm flesh. Hurried grabs were made for unstable cups as coffee threatened to spill, leaving an isolated torn wrapper and a few ginger fragments as sole evidence of the conflict.
For a moment they glared spite at each other. Dave retrieved his paperback from the floor. Richard picked up his broadsheet and made a disgruntled sound that could have been “Hmph!” Dave grunted an angry obscenity under his breath before they slowly and carefully turned away from each other, furiously concentrating on their respective reading material.
Joanna glanced over – what! She’d only just cleaned that table! Some people weren’t even housetrained!
No comments:
Post a Comment