The Meeting

The old professor was camping with the bearded professor in the abandoned playground miles away from the highway. One was chewing a candy apple while the other sat on a table staring up at the night sky.

“Did you know that space is opaque? ” he asked the other.

The old professor carefully chewed on his words as he ate his apple.

“No,” came his blunt reply.

“Neither did I,” said the younger man, scratching his thick red beard. “Until today.”

The old man nodded.

“Why do you have that table? ” He asked as he took another bite of the bright green apple. Some of its juice was already slowly rolling down his chin. He loved green apples. They were one of nature’s sacred gifts and also a forbidden fruit. He loved the word “forbidden.” His spine tingled every time he heard the word spoken. Anything forbidden was forbidden for a reason and therefore he had to be the one to commit the act of treason, curious of the result. Zeus hadn’t struck him with lightening yet so maybe the fruit wasn’t really forbidden or the god had just given up. He probably had better things to do than worry about professors consuming apples.

While he was chewing on his thoughts, however, the younger professor was looking at him quite strangely. His eyebrows were raised and his lips were sealed, but his bright green eyes, the same colour as the apple, showed confusion.

“What? ” blurted the wise man as pieces of chewed apple flew out of his mouth and splattered onto the bearded man’s face.

“Nothing,” the confused professor replied. He really didn’t want to say what a quack he thought the old man was. But the old man had noticed his stares.

“I’m a professor of philosophy,” he replied. “I think a lot.”

“I don’t,” mentioned red beard. “I teach sixteenth-century history. All I have is facts and knowledge. I don’t think, I know.”