Tex

The doors swing wide and the stranger stands, hands on hips. He peers around the café. No-one pays any attention. In the booth to the left of the door, Kay Lee and Tiffa Knee carry on their conversations live and virtual, loudly,

‘’e’s just tex me. It’s not righ’,innit?’

‘What’s ‘e tex, ven?’

‘I read it, righ’?’ “’Vey send ‘me ‘ome from school ‘cos I ‘ave a knife.”

Kay laughs and takes a sip from her chocolate milkshake.

The man comes over to their booth. They look up at him, eyebrows raised, each places one finger on their left cheek.

He takes out a knife.

Kay spills her milkshake, the chocolate stains her white skin, Tiffa Knee jerks her hand out of the way preserving its pristine alabaster.

The man carves “Text, Texts, Texting, Texted” into the wooden table top.

He leans into the frightened girls faces, “Don’t mess with The Conjugator!”