"Oh don't start getting into that nonsense again!" hooted Sparigy. (She was the spoon). "I feel it would just appall me! Like Knover over there! Look at him with all his spare time and serrated edges."
Knover stopped peering at his reflection in the stainless steel sugar bowl and glanced over, wide-eyed. (He was the knife). Sparigy sort of nodded in a satisfied way. 'I've known all along', is what her nod said.
Ferance rolled her eyes and pressed her lips together in a thin line. (She was the fork). "Toilet rolls went out in the eighties!" she told them all smartly, "When everyone had those silly perms and tight jeans."
"What tosh!" Sparigy shot back, "While it is true that they aren't exactly flourishing, the TP of today is not doing too badly, not too badly at all."
Knover lost interest and went back to scrutinizing himself. Ferance declared, "One time, I decided to stab the cook to see how it would feel."
Sparigy didn't look surprised and Ferance took this personally. "I did!" she exclaimed.
"Shh!" hissed Sparigy but Ferance was in full swing and unaware of the little coffee shop crowd coming in.
"It was too hot! Too bloody hot! It's always hot in that kitchen, and then there's the rubbing. Don't even talk to me about the effing rubbing that goes on in those silly, uncomfortable things they call cutlery trays. Pardon me, but I mean, do we look like cutlery?"
Knover cut in at this moment and said, "Absolutely! We are nothing if not cutlery!"
Sparigy said, "I fear that might be true, but I fear it might also be not."
Ferance continued in a high-pitched wail: "I now have chaff! I chaff so much that I am not only chaffing, but I am also, probably, shorter in size. I have positively shrunk, have I not?"
Sparigy ignored this blasphemy and turned to Knover. "Darling," she said in a very pleasant tone, for Knover was like a fragile, wilting flower and it broke her heart to even lay her eyes on him at times. This was not one of those times, but her voice has instinctively taken on that tone out of habit and she had long ago tired of trying to correct it. "I believe you have a date tonight?"
"A what?!" he shouted and slipped forward, clanging the tip of his oblongish head against the sugar bowl.
"I know," agreed Ferance without interest. Sparigy said, "With Tersary?" (The teaspoon).
"I never!" cried Knover, "She's much too young!"
"She's small," supplied Ferance.
Sparigy nodded, "What is she now, Ferance, about eighty?"
Ferance and Sparigy both frowned and Knover turned a marvelous shade of dull grey with embarrassment.
"If you please!" he spoke up hastily, "I have never even looked at Tersary like that, let alone agreed to go on a date with her!"
"No..." said Sparigy in a thoughtful tone that hid her actual thoughts with rare talented deception. She was not considering the age of Knover's new girlfriend, but was really pondering how to make it over to the bowls of pumpkin soup. She had tried and tried for weeks, but Solece had only been trying for the past three days and just yesterday he'd been snapped up! Sparigy shuddered in disgust. She couldn't believe she had ever been friends with such a traitor!
"I do believe she is around twelve," Ferance put in.
"What a load of rubbish!" Knover spluttered. There was a short silence, in which they all listened to the customers chatting and laughing at various tables. Sparigy fixed her eye on the leftover prawn salad on her plate and wondered how much effort it would take to slide it off.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Knover, lovely as you are. You are quite lovely." Ferance stopped and let that sink in. Knover stared. Ferance continued, "And, being such, you can't help who you fall for. Love is like a delicate chocolate crisp! Delicate! And chocolatey! Maybe not so much in the crisp side of things, which is a shame with a name like that, but oh well. What is one such as yourself meant to do with information of such? Take it! Take it at once and take Tersary with you!"
"Take her where?" Knover blinked, annoyed and slightly sore.
"TO LOVE!" shrieked Ferance, clearly overcome and unapproachable.
Ferance stared up at the room and admired all that she could see at the top. She could see wall and ceiling, framed paintings and wooden panels, clocks and signs that she couldn't read but understood because she made up her own meaning. She could see dried paint-drips that looked like white blood spots and little cobwebs.
There was a sudden crashing sound and a high-pitched scream that seemed to come from Knover.
"What happened?!" she turned her gaze back to the table.
"Sparigy's fallen!" he cried in horror.
"Ah well, there you go then." Ferance and Knover moved to the edge discreetly and with much sliding along the silky tablecloth. Down on the ground lay Sparigy, grinning brightly up at them as if she'd just slipped down a water-slide while sitting in a floaty giraffe ring. "Farewell friends at table five! Pumpkin soup is coming!"
There was another silence, but it stretched out for longer this time while everyone took in the situation.
"What utter trash talk!" Ferance muttered hotly, "they've taken pumpkin off the menu!"
(4_4)v
