cimorene

so one of the undersupervisors in the dining hall is one of those small rat-like men. you know, thin, eerily intent, with a little mustache and a close-trimmed beard, a pointed nose and small deepset black eyes. painfully earnest. small. did i say small?

anyway. he's SUCH A CUTE little rat-man.

my second day he showed me how to sort the silverware. there are knives, spoons, forks, and soup spoons, but it's not that simple because it saves everyone unaccounted trouble if you only nestle the spoons and forks together all facing the same way.

and said peremptorily of a passage to india, 'who is reading this?' and then we had a little discussion about literature, and i explained that i was more into sf, but not hard sf, and listed some favorite authors but he hadn't heard of them. today he was brooding on the floor-mopping while i darted about putting the soup spoons away and he said, 'so you're not into dungeons and dragons or anything like that are you?'

me: 'nope.'

him: 'oh good.'

...

!!! cute little rat-man, you could be a serial killer! you're so strange. and intense! and, like. small! i want to have his little rat babies! --except that i don't want to have babies, but if i did. right. and billy and dom weren't available.