sketchbook: Friday 15 July 2011

ca. 1:30 p.m. PARK ROYAL SOUTH

Vague subdued din of voices from the 2 wings of the food court. A modernistic setting with a curved ramp & great circles inset in the ceiling, glowing with blue recessed lamps hidden at their edges. I sit in the rest area, an oasis of worn sofas & chairs on the bone-colored desert of tile, large flags running diagonally. My chair is cocoa-colored; the other chair is somber blue; the 2 sofas face each other, one the color of pumpkin, the other of tomato soup.

Now others have arrived: 2 unrelated couples have taken to the sofas. One a retired pair, the man a tall stick-figure with long training shoes of bright white, drawing the eye from the rest of his olive-drab attire. The woman has a mannish haircut of iron-gray; she has a large mouth & small eyes. The other couple are younger and more animated in their talk. The man, heavy-set in a scarlet vest, appears to an aboriginal; the woman, sitting with right ankle on her left knee, does not. They've been laughing as they've tried to look up someone's number on her smartphone. He sprawls artlessly, legs splayed, taking up space.

And now a 6th person arrives to use the final chair: a young slim blonde girl, who puts her pink bag down on the chair while she checks her phone. Now she's gone again.

"It's musical! It's very musical!" squeals the younger woman. The man toms on the back of his sofa, an Indian 4/4 beat while he hums.

"My dad made up that song."