written by owen

As of late I have been eating food - in the food court using late meal vouchers, getting there around the same time, late at the night. Facading my facades. The interesting thing about food courts is that it is always filled with people of some kind. People that you will see only if you go there at that time, that second, its like monkeys in the wild or tulips in the spring. And they are not there for the food. It is a place that they were meant to be, if destiny is kind. Death and taxes. Now if someone tells you that the Chinese food at Little Tokyo is good, make sure you ask them if its really Chinese - not some foreign country which happens to have "Chinese like" people that cook. I began to worry when I asked for chicken and she said "which chicken?". Chewy. Too many choices.

In the food court there will be cults of people. You have the mid-week daters who have nothing better to do than the same things they do every week, except this time with other people. The people who cannot cook and prefer to eat among strangers - every once in a while. The student group who are still polite and have the dreamer's disease. The laptop users who are just there for the free internet. The old couples discussing the blue color that results when you put the thing in the toilet water - watch the stars fall silent. The janitorial staff who have their own little circle of people who they talk to - everybody hurts.

Its a place where you go, stay for a while and then leave. Like a temporary hotel without the water sports and little chocolates. The others, the kids on a night out, people on permanent holiday and the local foreigners who don't feel safe anywhere else. The people seeing each other on "the side". The models, sexy ladies, the punks, the idlers looking to pick up other people, the business meeting, the drug deal. Cute babies, people waiting for people, people finding people. Its like a playground for the mind, you don't want to go there too often, or stay too late, just long enough to get what you give.

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