once upon a time, i was sitting in an internet cafe in riga. i was typing something in english, i don't remember what it was. it could have been an email or maybe a post on this blog.
anyway, there was the guy sitting next to me. and i was aware that sometimes his eyes would drift over to my screen. he tried to look nonchalant about it, but it was still pretty obvious. i wasn't writing anything all that private, so i pretended not to notice.
then abruptly he spoke to me, in heavily accented latvian-english: "what do you say if you don't talk?" he asked.
"what?" i said.
"what do you say if you don't talk?"
"i don't understand."
"do you speak english?" he asked.
"yes," i replied.
"where are you from?"
"america."
"then you speak english," he informed me, "in english, what do you say if you don't talk?"
"well, if you don't talk, you don't say anything."
he gave me this puzzled look, and then said, "what do you say if i do not talk?"
"then i would say: 'you do not talk.'" i added, trying to be helpful: "you do not talk, i do not talk, he does not talk, she does not talk, we do not talk..."
"no, no, no," he said, "if you do not hear you are deaf, and if you do not talk?"
"you are mute."
"yes, mute," he said, "that is the word."
