original story 12 - the waiter

by bofa xesjum

after a long wait in line outside in the rain, the party of four was finally seated at a corner table of the finest restaurant. the people who rule the world are idiots, matthew pronounced authoritatively as they waited for the waiter to arrive to take their orders. human society needs to be totally torn down and reorganized, mark agreed tentatively. luke slammed her fist on the table. the biggest problem in the world is greed, she thundered. people are bad, they should be good, john whispered subliminally as the waiter finally arrived. the waiter’s name was 533-p. they wore a purple sash and a black mustache and waited patiently for the party to notice them and place their orders. behind 533-p’s back, and behind john’s back, and directly in the line of matthew’s sight, and at odd angles to mark’a and luke’s lines of sight, was the table of another gang of four, heartily devouring their meticulously prepared food. people are lonely, they should get together, war stated, as she shoved a piece of broiled swordfish into her mouth. rich people are rich because poor people are poor, famine asserted, toying with their fork. and poor people are poor because rich people are rich, pestilence added, draining her glass of water. is pestilence agreeing with famine or contradicting them? everything a person does is an expression of themself against the world , death stated, perhaps irrelevantly, as she speared a juicy spiced crab leg on her silver fork. elsewhere in the deafeningly loud restaurant, conversations just as contentious and/or agrreabilatory, were transpiring at a gatling gun pace. 533-p made their way back to the kitchen with matthew’s, mark’s, luke’s and john’s orders ensconced firmly in their brain. although they had duly recorded them on their minitablet, they really had no need to do so, because a) they were an agent of the andromedan empire, on a fact-finding mission to so-called earth b) they were a projection of the world brain, first developed by gilgamesh in uruk in 5007 bc c) the only purpose of art is give voice to the voiceless d) every living creature has a right to its own life, to be free, and to what rightfully belongs to it