The snowfall had intensified. In the last remnants of the abating wind, the fat flakes were swarming the streetlights like moths. Art and Monica stood on the sidewalk while the tram rumbled away from the stop. Its noise was soon swallowed by the cottony landscape.
Monica hadn't put up her hood, and the flakes alighted on her long, black hair. They sat there for some seconds, then they melted—like shooting stars enjoying their brief moment of fame. The only stars of permanence were the flickers in her eyes as they studied him.
"Are you up to this?" Her smile fed the dimples in her cheeks.
"The question game? Sure." What could be hard about asking each other a question?
"But you know the rules, don't you?" She started strolling along the sidewalk, towards the intersection with Dumstreet.
"Tell me about them." Something in her smile that was almost a grin made him distrust her. "Once I know the rules, I'll decide if I join the game."
"Aha, you're having second thoughts, I see." She traced a hand along a chest-high wall separating a garden from the sidewalk. Her fingers plowed through the snow that had accumulated on top of it. "The rules are simple. The question must be answered truthfully and... fully. The answer must include all important facts."
"And what happens if someone fails to obey the rules?"
She stopped, clawed a fist-load of snow, and kneaded it into a ball. "The perpetrator gets snowballed." She made the snowball hop from her right hand to her left, and back, and forth, her slitted eyes trained on Art.
He wondered how she managed not to drop the thing. Then he dug his hand into another section of the snow topping the wall.
The stuff was cold.
He retrieved a handful and formed it into a weapon of his own.
"And how will you know if an answer was not truthful or incomplete?" He felt a grin on his face.
"I'll just know, believe me."
"Fine, I'll know a lie, too."
She tilted her head. "Are you sure? I'm a woman, I can sniff a lie. You're not."
He shrugged. "I'm a mathematician. I have an eye for broken symmetries and broken truths." He hoped the waitress would not be overawed by him being a mathematician.
"Okay. If you say so." Her tone lacked any trace of awe.
They reached the intersection and turned into Dumstreet.
"You first," Art said. "Ask your question."
"Okay. But I warn you, I'm a good shot." She swung her arm and threw the snowball. It hit a No Parking sign across the street with a loud bang.
"You don't intimidate me." He swung his own arm, aiming for the sign, threw—and missed.
She laughed. "I see. Okay, here's my question... You're an American. Why did you come to live in Tavetia?"
An easy one.
"I was offered a good job at the Tavetian Institute of Technology. The math institute here is world-class, and the work is right up my favorite alley... four-dimensional symmetries. It was an offer too good to decline."
"That's it?" She studied his face, a waterfall of wet hair covering one of her eyes.
"Yeah."
They were passing a car parked next to the curb. In a swift motion, Monica dug both her forearms into the snow on its roof, shoveling up a substantial amount of the white mass, turned, and propelled it into Art's face.
YOU ARE READING
The Egg at Dumstreet
Mystery / Thriller[Completed] A U.S. expatriate is cast into a rainy, foggy corner of Europe. He went there on the pretense to work on his research, but he actually wanted to put as many miles as possible between himself and his ex. The university he works for has fo...
