Schoolyard

It was meant as a moment of derision. Outwardly it was insulting, inwardly rather farcical, but he had said it with such earnestness that one's attention was captured. One might have mistaken him for a six year old, were it not that he was clearly a man of seventy or so.  The others in the room awaited my baited response. At the moment I was concentrating gravely on not bursting out in laughter, so wasn't able to sharpen my witty reparte quickly enough, and the moment was lost. So I merely smiled and nodded, for it was all I could muster. This was seen by the muckraking watchers as an acknowledgement that his ludicrous statement bore merit, and I became less than to them in their small game of thrones. For the more thoughtful in the room it was seen for what it truly was, an unintentionally humorous engagement with an entirely humorless and angry old man, of whom thinking less would be ill mannered. And so the conversation moved on. His stare spoke that he felt robbed of an expected response from me, and was about to demand it. Alas, no one cared for they had already judged as they were inclined and nothing really changed. This is what passes for honest discourse today. We rearrange our prejudices, thinking we have given the notion much thought.