Lexicon

by Max Barry

“It doesn’t look like a school.” “Actually, it looks very much like a school. You may think otherwise because your experience has been limited to government-run child farms.” She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “To me, those do not look very much like schools.”

“Keep talking, though,” Eliot said. “I feel like it’s helping, in a process of elimination kind of way.”

A woman walked by who reminded Wil of someone but he didn’t know who.

“I’m fine,” Eliot said, and all of a sudden he was.

He had departed on some mode of transport to an unnamed destination for unknown reasons for an indeterminate length of time. She was glad he had explained that.

She had visited this shop nearly every weekday lunchtime for the past four years. She had practically married Cheryl’s sandwiches.

He overlooked this sometimes: the need to display empathy.

It concerned him a little, because it meant she didn’t think he was acting rationally, and he needed her to think him rational for at least a while longer.

Butlers began to swarm, excited by his inattention.