The night had begun and the darkness was full of crickets. Christmas lights were on in the apartment although it was not anytime near Christmas. A warm breeze entered through the window hinting at the endless possibilities of a summer night. A woman and two men were having Vietnamese dinner. The men were talking about politics and capitalism. The woman was silent and smiling. She was Vietnamese. One of men, the ginger one, looked up at her and asked: “So what do you study?”. She replied, “Environmental science and economy”. Her voice was very polite. It was the kind of voice that doesn’t want to offend anyone and is always slightly worried about doing so nevertheless. There was a pause with crickets in it and the ginger man said, “These two things are in fact mutually exclusive”. “So first you learn how to preserve the environment and then you learn how to destroy it?”, added the other man and they both laughed with childlike delight. The woman wrapped a strand of long black hair around her index finger. She examined it. She wrapped it around her finger again. She was silent. They looked at her expectantly. The night was warm and inviting. She said,
“I don’t know”.
