In Uganda, a popular marbles game is called dool.

Sophie stood before me. “I'm leaving with that guy,” she gestured.

“Yes, I thought that would happen,” I chuckled.

She hugged me. The guy, whose name we managed to never utter, did not hug me, though he usually does. They went home together.

That was the last time I saw Sophie.

The rest of us sat down, finished our drinks, and split up. I went with Sophie's ex-girlfriend and the guy who sometimes serves as her ironic beard.

They smoked their disgusting light cigarettes, the kind with very little tobacco but lots of horrible chemicals that make me cough and hopefully fail to give me lung cancer, because watching someone else die of that was excruciating enough.

So we get to our next destination and there is a Peruvian girl sitting on a stool and shopping for shoes on her phone. I am fascinated. Phone app developers had told me that people actually did this but I thought it was just wishful thinking on their part.

The Peruvian girl, who is named something that sounds like it was uttered accidentally by Tommy Gnosis, complains to Sophie's ex-girlfriend that some guy keeps harassing her. We instinctively form a human barrier to shield her from this alleged transgressor, who, it turns out, is the pompous drug dealer with whom Sophie's ex-girlfriend is just about to conduct business.

“I'll be right back,” she says. “Hit on her.”

“What‽ Why‽” I shout after her. There is no response.

Sophie's ex-girlfriend and the drug dealer return from the darkness, having swapped possessions.

The drug dealer is a blowhard and proceeds to regale us with stories so little interest to me that I can't even remember what they were about, but as drug dealers are wont to do, he abuses the power of his possession to maintain the delusion that people would tolerate his presence even if he didn't have illegal commodities to sell them.

When the beard and Sophie's ex-girlfriend go out for a smoke break, I went home.

Posted on 2014-12-10
Tags: mintings