ICE CREAM AND THE MOONA LISA

by Catherine Smith (Oxford)

In this café, engineering students breakfast on ice-cream - pale green pistachio and Oxford Blue; shared banana splits, luscious with whipped cream and shaved chocolate. They grapple with elementary quantum theory, decorate diagrams in scribbled pencil.

As they lick their lips and work out how the Universe works, painted cows gaze benignly at them from the walls; a Bovine Mona Lisa, her polished hooves demurely crossed, blesses them with promises of kindness and milk.

From the speakers, Blondie sings of a Heart of Glass; the coffee machine hisses and roars. The students talk of sports cars they’d like to drive, cities they’ll visit; imagined futures, when today will be the past. They yawn and stretch; minutes tick by.

When they leave, there’s a void, silence. Only their smeared plates and spoon remain. The air they have disturbed settles itself again, waits for the couple who will take their seats, drink milk-shakes, talk about how this place is a bubble; unreal.

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What Catherine Smith says about ICE CREAM AND THE MOONA LISA:

Inspired by observing students and surroundings in George and Davis