Lunch Conversation

Lightly dabbing his waffle fry in the ketchup he spread over his burger’s wrapper, John Seager looked over at his girlfriend sitting across from him. They were both eating their lunch outside of their college’s cafeteria. Sitting on one of the many, uncomfortable metal benches, their attitudes gave onlookers the semblance of being complete strangers. Each was lost and engrossed in their own thoughts, Kate in the crossword puzzles she was working on, and John, well an onlooker would swear that he was trying to divine the secrets of life from his waffle fry.

“So how many more years do you think we’ve got?” John asked, breaking the silence. Putting down his waffle fry, he focused his attention on Kate.

Kate looked up from the local newspaper she was reading, and with mild confusion spread across her face, she asked, “What? What are you talking about? You mean for school? I guess one more year…”

“No, no, I mean on this earth. I mean, how many more years do we have of being around, period. I put it at around fifty years, sixty tops.”

“What are you talking about? You already worried about what’s gonna happen in sixty years?” Kate snickers as she looks back down to her crossword puzzle.

“Think about it, I don’t think it’s nearly enough time. I don’t think I’d be happy with just sixty years.”

“Uh..huh…,” Kate responded, finishing a word she was writing in. She then, with a look that clearly showed she’d rather not continue the conversation, asked, “Well, how many years would you be happy with? Eighty? Ninety?”

“No, still not enough,” John said. He looked away from Kate and started playing with his styrofoam cup, gently squeezing and releasing it in both his hands, over and over. “Here’s the thing, we, all of us, we’ve got this damn brain that can think up this one egging question: What if? It’s this question that, no matter how old we’d get, or how bad things get, it just makes us hope for one more beautiful day, one more memorable experience.” He kept on squeezing and releasing.

“I see. You know, I think Methuselah had about enough of life when his time came,” she said. Realizing John was going to continue in this line for a while; she gave a sigh and pointed her pencil at John after every sentence she said. “Besides, what’s happiness have to do with any of that? Can’t the happiness of just being here, eating lunch with me, be enough? Can’t the fact that you’ve got less than a year to graduate college be enough? Why can’t there be enough happiness in the here and now?”

“That’s just it,” John said. Oblivious to Kate’s annoyance with the conversation, he continued, “I don’t think our minds work that way. In a small sense, we’re long sighted creatures, we can’t help but think of tomorrow’s meal even as we eat breakfast today, see what I’m saying?”

“Uh…not entirely. But, by all means continue…,” Kate said. Her slender fingers gracefully picked up a piece of cantaloupe from the small Tupperware container in front of her, and, eyeing the fruit carefully, she added, “Just…gah…just don’t be so serious all the time.” Then she went back to her crossword puzzle and cantaloupe.

Ignoring her comment, he began to tell her, “Like, today, I was sitting outside of the new math building, the one with the really nice lush lawn and the new landscaping. Well, it was just…just so perfect, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, it feels great today. Wanna go joggin this afternoon?”

“Yeah, sure…,” he agreed. He put down the Styrofoam cup and shifted around a bit in his seat and. With newfound excitement, he continued, “But as I was saying, everything was perfect, but I still felt, I don’t know, sad inside, you know? It was like…like, even though in the here and now I was experiencing this great weather and pretty landscape, it was all tinged with sadness because I knew that it wouldn’t last for me. I mean, there’ll be nice days again, like today, and there’ll be nice landscapes, but how many more will I get to enjoy in my own lifetime? Just not enough.” Taking a quick sip from his soda, he said, “I could almost see myself, sitting in the same place, seeing all the same things, but as a really old person. I imagined how it would feel if that were the last time I would ever have of enjoying the day. And you know, you just can’t enjoy something fully knowing that it’s going to be taken from you all too soon. Instead of just actually enjoying it for its own sake, you begin to force yourself to ‘overenjoy’ it, or you feel bitterness or sadness for having it eventually taken from you. You just don’t enjoy it, fully I mean. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Wha, honey? Hey, what’s a four letter word for ‘Brazilian soccer legend’?” Kate asked, again engrossed completely by her crossword puzzle.

“I don’t know,” he said, standing up and collecting his things. He sighed and offered, “Maybe Ennui. I’ve gotta go to my next class.”

“Okay, honey. Have fun,” Kate said.

“Sure, um…I don’t think I can jog today, sorry.”

“Okay. You know, I don’t think it’s Ennui. The ‘E’ just doesn’t work.”

“Must be something else then, good luck,” John said, giving Kate a soft kiss on the top of her head. As he walked away, keeping his gaze intently down, he left Kate alone to her crossword puzzle, content in her diversion.