There’s a cloud the color of confusion hanging over the street like a cartoon bubble full of question marks and exclamation marks. I’m having coffee with my friends and nibbling on fried tempeh. It’s too hot for conversation so we just say things to keep the silence company. No one’s stupid, I say, we’re just all ignorant. Swastika. Not that one. Probably disagrees because he thinks I’m stupid for always paying for everyone’s coffee. There’s a cloud the color of rain hanging over the city like a broken promise. Hadi, the taxi driver, may be the smartest. At least he knows all the shortcuts and which times of day to avoid which intersections. Says, people believe what they can’t prove and then use that belief to disprove what other people believe. There’s a cloud the color of suspended disbelief hanging over the table like a poem by Emily Dickinson. Nyoman believes facts are like cockroaches. Ugly. Scurrying over countertops tabletops desktops mountaintops. Everyone wants to kill them. How do you kill a cockroach, Swastika asks rhetorically, stomp crunch stomp crunch. No no, Hadi says, don’t feed it not even one crumb of thought and it will die

under the weight of opinion. Even though the coffee is so-so we order more.

Bio: Bob Lucky