When I had filled my cup again and taken a swallow of my coffee, I swiveled my chair about only to be met by the sight of Roland—still languorously recumbent under the throw blanket—training a particularly gimlet eye upon me.
“What?” I asked after a moment. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
At once his expression softened. “Excuse me,” he said. “I was only looking to see whether I could make out the wheels turning in your head, so to speak. I thought you might be working out what I mean by an ‘ontology of time.’”
“Oh,” I replied, “it’s still too early for that.” I raised my cup to my lips. “And I haven’t had enough coffee yet.” I took another swallow.
Roland sighed. “A reliance on stimulants, you know, can lead only to the atrophy of the natural faculties. That’s what did in the Inca civilization, you know—too much chewing of coca leaves on long afternoons... especially in the higher elevations of Peru, where the air’s thin.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” I said, feeling my brow furrow. “Anyway, three-quarters of my intelligence is pure caffeine. You wouldn’t find my conversation worth your time if it weren’t for coffee and tea.”
He continued to stare at me, but now with a look of mild concern in his eyes. “It was chocolate that brought down the Aztec Empire, you know. Too much theobromine... and too much human sacrifice, of course, as that tends to ruffle people’s feathers.”
“It wasn’t because of the conquistadores?”
“Those too.” He licked his shoulder twice or thrice meditatively. “Anyway, just a word to the wise.” He paused suddenly, mid-slather, and darted an inquisitive glance at me. “You understand I’m not actually suggesting that the people of that time had feathers, even if ancient Mesoamerican sacral vestments did occasionally use the borrowed plumage of exotic birds?”
I nodded. “Yes, I understood the metaphor.”
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