DINNER

Out of town staying in a hotel overnight. Went for dinner as the football just about to kick-off.
‘You want to watch?' the waiter asked and showed me to a table I could see the telly from.
Minestrone soup starter, eating a stir fry when joined by a man I’d met earlier in the day.
‘I’m not used to eating with other people,’ he said.
‘I don’t like people to see me eat,’ I said.
Pause.
‘I don’t usually eat this time of night,' he said, 'I’ll have a big breakfast, the works like, and that’ll see me through the day...might nibble though, but won’t have a meal.’
The waiter brought him a soup and when he’d finished that a cannellonni and small salad like he’d asked for. Between courses he went for a smoke in the hotel lobby.
‘I was sat there watching the football,’ he said when he got back, ‘and I don’t like football.’
‘I don’t have a telly so when I get the chance I have a binge, I do, it’s a treat for me.’
‘I’ll watch it in the morning but that’s it for me.’
‘Yeh, opium of the people, it is.’
‘Yeh.’