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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Sichuan Conspiracies

We met in a post-war Sichuan cafe, my friends and I.  Soon, we were dripping in oils and basting in cumin.  It was a lively cafe, the waiters in hip, skinny ties and well-fitted oxford shirts, shuffling back and forth with trays of fish in chile oil and chicken with Sichuan peppercorns and ginger.

At 8:56pm eastern standard time, my friend started rubbing his right leg in agitation.  I noticed, and as I moved to comfort him, an explosive sound was heard and my friend jerked to the right.

"My god, they're going to knock into us all!" he cried.

Pandemonium ensued, and it all happened so fast that not even I, sitting right next to my friend, really had a sense of what happened. Evidence was collected, witnesses were questioned, a commission was formed, a theory was proposed.

The official version of events, as it were, stated a lone walker, a waiter, strode past the right side of my friend, brushing his right leg, and then, out of embarrassment, abruptly turned and walked away, hitting my friend in the right shoulder area.  How this came to be the official version is a case of human folly and corruption without parallel.  The following questions must be asked:

  • Why did many witnesses claim they saw a toddler run past the scene, a toddler who finds no presence in the official version?
  • Why did my friend jerk to his right if he were being hit on his right side; in other words, why would he jerk in the direction of the offending blow; in other words, isn't it natural to jerk away from such offending blows rather than towards?
  • Why did a waiter known for his ability to weave-and-bob, a waiter who had received top marks for his agile abilities and graciousness, make not one, but two contacts with a client, and then fail to amend the situation?
  • Why can we not question the accused waiter more?  Oh, that's right - because he mysteriously died two days later at the hands of a deranged chimpanzee named Walter.
All of these questions and more raise serious doubts concerning the commission's report.  All we can say for sure is a good man suffered serious leg cramps and a left shoulder contusion, and we may never know what really happened.