…I am not alone in the woman’s apartment upon my arrival, because she maintains an entourage of young fashionable people. One of them is an arrogant hippie. He serves everyone a dish of bread pudding with syrup, everyone but me. When I ask him about it, he replies that I am being punished for the rudeness of my initial greeting. He’s right: I had been a little aloof.
“OK, then,” I declare, with token defiance, “I’ll just fetch myself a glass of water.” I repair to the kitchen. However, the flat is very well fitted out, and I’m afraid of breaking something expensive, simply by my presence. I find a plastic cup, which I manage to extricate from a cabinet without causing a glass avalanche. I hold the cup under the faucet and turn on the cold water, but nothing comes out of the tap. Instead, an immaculate column of electrolyte-enhanced eau filtrée begins pouring out of a countertop purifier and splattering cacophonously upon the marble-tiled floor.
I search in vain for a schmatte to wipe it up.
Yellow Crane in the Rain 