I’d spoken a hundred thousand times to the statue but since
the moment I’d first met it, its responses were always stone cold. Not that
they were lacking in content, but there’d always been an undercurrent of apathy
and disinterest.
“What would you like for lunch today?” I once asked, and the
reply was stronger than silence could ever have been.
“Cereal is not a lunch food, statue, but even if it was we
can’t make any, seeing as how you forgot to buy the milk the other day.”
Instead of apologising, the statue immediately discussed the
current state of political affairs. However, it was filled with so many disingenuous
assertions that I knew it didn’t believe in half the things it was saying. In
fact, I knew nothing of politics and I could understand a little of what he was saying, which was already a big
red flag.
I interrupted it, “yes that’s all very interesting, but what
about lunch?”
It was a while later that I found myself eating cereal by
the bedside, having taken the time to purchase milk for myself. Perhaps I
should have done so from the beginning; the process would have been so much
faster. I laid the bowl in front of the statue but it refused to touch it. “Don’t
you know that cereal has lots of protein? How will you grow big and strong?” I
questioned, but there was no answer. How could there be? I was completely
reasonable; any response from it would have been the opposite, on account of my
being right.
Instead, the statue responded with a long monologue about
the intricacies of the public transportation system. I countered with an
equally unrelated quote from the journal of meteorology and climatology,
stating that global warming would significantly change the landscape of
housing. There was no rebuttal, for I had won simply on account of being more
researched.
“It feels as though I have won this argument,” I said
smugly. The statue did not reply, and I knew it was sulking.
In this manner we passed the day, bantering uselessly with
baseless information neither of us knew or had ever sought out. It was a relationship
founded on shaky ground, both poor in substance and in authenticity, but it was
one I maintained for the sake of future times, when the statue might be more
passionate and receptive about things that really mattered.
