Month: June 2022

Inside the small room there was a young woman who tended the animals, and a boy and his dad. I reached over and petted the hippo, stroked his furry grey back. Then after the woman lifted the young hippo gently and lowered him to the floor, the four of us observed him slide around on his belly. His feet were thick wide flippers and he waddled across the slippery tiles. Ungainly he looked, like a platypus.

“What brings you here?” the woman asked.

“I had a bit of time,” I replied, “So I thought I would stop in at the zoo.”

At the back of the enclosure and in another room, there was a place to order a drink. I stepped through to see a few people milled around the bar. And a man who had just flown in made me his friend.

“Let me buy you a beer,” he said as he backslapped me. But I did not have the time, I thought.

“Ok,” I said reluctantly. He was from Belgium and was fat with a white shirt untucked. But he was friendly. So I drank his beer.

And then once I’d done that, he said, “Another?”

This time I really didn’t have time, but before I could say no, he’d got a new round anyway.

He stepped away to talk to someone else and when he returned to the bar, I said, “No really, I have no time.”

I gave him a 20 dollar bill to get out of there.

I was going to walk and I was already late. Besides, the boy had left his father and was following me, was holding me up. What it really the same boy?

“Hey, I don’t want you to follow me.” I said down to him, but if I cut through UCL I would make it in time for the interview.

The day was sunny, bright. Better to walk than to to take the train, I thought, so I set off on a brisk clip through the unversity grounds.

Where was this place? I could see it on the map but when I reached the square with the gold buildings, with the café that sold cakes, that was right next door to the office, I still could not be sure it was the right place.

Koros, I think, was the name of the company; and it did not quite look the same as on the map but that was surely it. It had the right logo, a black trident on the gold trim that lined the square, so it had to be it.

And then the boy was still following me, so what was I going to do with him?

He was already feisty and when we went through the café, I wanted to get rid of him there and then, but he still refused to go. Instead he would hang closer when I tried to leave.

I could buy him a pastry but that would make him worse for the sugar rush.

Maybe he could stay in the lobby of the office. Then I remembered Adam V knew me already and would probably be fine with him.

If the boy could just sit down for two minutes, it might be ok.

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr