A List of Small Sounds

I got to the dining hall early enough to choose any table and late enough that choosing one would look deliberate.

The distinction seemed useful until I saw Oren already there. He sat near the end of a long table, with two empty places beside him and most of the room still open. When he noticed me, he lifted his eyes, then let them return to his tray. He didn’t wave. It was a careful greeting, and I was relieved to recognize it.

I collected lunch and sat across from him, leaving the chair between us empty. The table gave us more than a metre. A camera set into the ceiling had a clear view of both our faces.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello.”

We had used one conversation already. Nothing about lunch itself required us to talk, but leaving the silence untouched felt like a different kind of performance.

Oren peeled the paper sleeve from his fork. “I thought you might sit somewhere else today.”

“I considered it.”

He waited. He was good at that: letting a sentence be finished before deciding whether it needed an answer.

“I kept thinking about the fact that we’d agreed on today,” I said. “It made the whole thing feel like an appointment.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I’m still deciding.”

He nodded, as if that were a complete answer. The sound of trays and chairs moved around us. The dining hall’s public screen cycled through afternoon reminders. Neither of us looked up at it.

“Did you want to come?” he asked.

The question was simple. It deserved one.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

His mouth shifted at one corner. “Good.”

We ate for a little while. I took care not to keep looking at him just because I’d said yes. Looking was one of the things the system measured, and I didn’t want to turn a small truth into a test I had to pass.

“What do you do when you’re not thinking about what the school measures?” I asked.

Oren took a moment. “I repair mechanical pencils.”

“That’s unexpectedly specific.”

“They’re easy to take apart. Most of the time the problem is a spring or a jammed piece of lead.” He glanced at the pencil lying by his tray. “People throw them away while they still work.”

“Do you carry a repair kit?”

“A small one.”