It turns out that Rohana is merely a considerate driver who has anxiety about merging into rush hour, because a moment later, still squinching my eyes closed, she breathed out and relaxed. “I didn’t think that truck would let me in,” she admitted.

“Semi or pick-up?” I asked, still with my eyes tightly shut.

“I don’t try to make a semi stop on my account. Enough people are crazy around trucks,” she said. It wasn’t curt, but it did sound like she had a reason. I reflected, not looking at the world around me, that most of the accidents I had seen the tractor-trailer style trucks in were because someone in a little zippy car had forgotten the truck’s limitations. They can’t stop on a dime, they have limited vision, and they’re big so people get nervous when driving next to them.

“Can I open my eyes now?” I asked.

She giggled, which I took as a yes.

We were headed southbound on a local freeway business loop that led to the main interstate corridor that pretty much defines Denver. It’s the modern equivalent to the rule about cities being born to rivers, only this one was a river of concrete, steel, and physics. I had some ideas as to what lay in this general direction, but I tried not to guess.

I like to think I’m possessed of a healthy curiosity, sure, but I didn’t shake my presents, look gift horses in the mouth, nor do I try to figure out who did it in mysteries. Too often my delight is in the story well told, the story itself, not the details. I’ve heard the chicken crossing the road joke, but it still gets me laughing if it’s told in a great fashion. Getting to the other side is all about the journey, after all.

“So, I am reminded that I should always get the young man’s name and address,” she said in the brief, but fairly comfortable silence.

“And not to trust dogs with orange eyebrows?” I asked.

“On the contrary, I only trust dogs with orange eyebrows,” she smiled. “How do you pronounce what you substitute the ‘E’ for?”

“Very carefully,” I suggested. I gave her my father’s method. “Only no branch of the family spells it the same way.”

“Ah. Is that your phone ringing?” she changed the subject.

I had to get into my coat in order to dig it out of my vest, managing to do so in just enough time to see myself missing Sylvia’s call.

“Sorry, was it important?” she asked, as I sighed and set the phone to vibrate.

“Um. Not really,” I decided.

“You’re a poor liar. It was something personal. I can see it in your body language. Probably another girl. Probably Sylvie,” she grinned.

I grinned right back at her. “So what should I tell her?”

“Hands off. You had your chance, wench-io. The early bird gets the best specials at the buffet.” She burst out laughing and took the exit into the tunnel.

“Well, I guess I’d rather be a smorgasbord than a worm,” I mused.

“Shhh. You’re supposed to hold your breath through those.”

“Huh. Is that like raising your legs when you go over train tracks in the bus?”

“Might be. Here we are.” She got excellent parking, which isn’t to say the place wasn’t packed, just that she snagged a spot near the front.

I had never been to the place, but I had heard good things about it. She put my hand down when I grabbed the menu. “Let me order?” she asked. I wouldn’t say the request had a little bit of pout to it, exactly, but she had a mischevious plan.

I dropped the menu and held up my hands exaggeratedly. “You’re the boss,” I grinned.

I took a moment to enjoy the interior. Plenty of tables, dark wood, some artificial foliage in nice white pots designed to look kind of like white lions. I remember reading an article recently that showed how modern technology made all the previously white statues into this garish combination of clown-like colours. I think the authors exaggerated for effect.

“Psst!” the lion on my right said.

I looked around to see if there was someone else. Rohana was busy conferring with the waiter, making some kind of special arrangement. I hoped she wasn’t pretending it was my birthday and sending bored waitstaff to half-heartedly sing or clap or otherwise make a lot of noise and add to the humiliation I would no doubt bring upon myself tonight.

“Psst! Over here!” the lion repeated.

I turned towards the lion, moving some of the silk leaves to see if there was a recorder or something else stuck in them. Hey, they dusted!

“Hee hee hee! That tickles!” the lion said.

I looked back at Rohana. She seemed not to notice. Maybe people playing with plants was nothing out of the ordinary on her dates. Maybe she only dated professional botany botherers? Foliage fingerers? Bush boink–… oh dear. Um.

“No, down here. The lion, you idiot.”

The lion looked up at me and blinked its filmy white eyes with the sound of ceramic tinking against itself. It stretched its head a little bit, looking from right to left. “Good. No one’s really paying attention except that little girl, and she’s a Small Thing, so she’s one of ours.”

I glanced over to where a little girl looking extremely bored had her eyes on our conversation. Her folks were eating appetizers.

“You’re from the King?” I asked in an undertone, feeling very James Bond for a moment. The waiter took our menus, but Rohana caught his attention for one other note, one hand referring to the wine glasses on the table.

“The Seven King of Small Things, yes. We are the first Messenger.”

The lion jumped onto the table, looking like I had accidentally knocked it over. I stood up and made a big deal about looking as if I was apologizing for being terribly clumsy. “What’s that about?” I hissed.

The lion just snorted and froze in my hands. Behind me, the little girl was laughing. It turned to sound a little like a roar.

“May I be excused to go to the bathroom?” she asked an adult. Getting the, “Go-ahead,” wave, she headed towards Rohana and I. “The King,” she murmured in a whisper that sounded like the lion.

“Um, I have to, you know, go,” I said, suavely. Rohana stared at me as I picked up my napkin and put it on the table. “I’ll be right back,” I promised.

Presuming I wasn’t arrested for being a pervert or something. As I passed by a picture on the way towards the restroom, the picture in it stirred. “The message,” said something in the same voice as the lion. It was the picture of a window somewhere in the area of the Mediterranean.

I pretended to be looking at it as something dark moved behind the window. “The message,” it repeated.

“Yeah, I got that the first time. What is the message?”

“What was that?” asked an older woman coming out of the restroom behind me.

“Oh, sorry, I was, um, talking to myself.” The picture was just a picture again. I went into the restroom. At least I could wash my hands and make it look like I wasn’t getting weird.