The Contemporaries

The horribly dispossessed old man was running circles around the contemporaries in his head, when in all reality on the ground floor, he was staying silent and dumb. Several of his contemporaries looked at him in confusion, and a few of them repeated the phrase, “Speak up! Speak up!” Getting louder and louder each time they shouted. 

Why vanquish anyone in the real world when you could vanquish them in your imagination? It’s much more fun that way. Less of a mess in the end, and things always go according to plan. 

“Speak up!” they howled, “speak up, speak up!”

But here was the thing: he remained deaf and dumb. Who knows if it was an act or the real thing. 

Whether he was playing dumb or actually dumb, the contemporaries couldn’t figure it out. They couldn’t make heads or tails of it. They eventually grew tired of shouting and walked off, leaving him be. 

The man returned to his bowl of lukewarm soup, and smiled.