I was sitting on a bench on the rooftop bar of 'The Order', rolling a cigarette and composing a text message when the conversation next to me caught my attention.
I turned slightly, so as to better eavesdrop, and from my peripherals I noted four people sitting around a table - two guys and two girls. They were all rather pleasant looking people, and it seemed to me that it was a double date.
The two guys were involved in an earnest and impassioned conversation. One of them, a taller fellow with a straggly beard and long, wavy hair said, "YES! But that's EXACTLY why time is our prisoner!" (This is what initially caught my attention.)
The fellow he was talking to had a more clean-cut and fashionable image - styled hair and clothes that emphasised his physique. He eagerly nodded along as his friend said this, then twisted away to the girls, a bemused and enthusiastic grin on his face.
Now, to my left, and adjacent to these two chaps this whole time were the girls; perhaps in their early twenties, quite cute and dressed in low-cut yet respectable clothes. The entire while that their male counterparts had been engaging in their philosophical musings, they had also been chatting, almost convulsively so. It was a continuous bubbling of giddy and euphoric sounds; the shape of each word indistinct beneath the melody of their combined voices; a conversation of undecipherable syllables all dizzy and cacaphonic. It was not unpleasant though, and appeared more to me that they were simply very good friends. They actually were nearly sitting on each other, they were so close, and they laughed and hooted often.
Anyway - the fashionable man turned to them, and reached over to lay a hand upon the closest knee, drawing their attention.
They shut up instantaneously and looked at him.
Eyes a'glow, he announced, "Ladies!" (And here he paused, revelling in his moment and beaming a wry grin of pride.) "Ladies - WE have been discussing - TIME!"
The girls looked at him, then looked at each other, and then looked back at him. The closest one to him, the one upon whose knee he'd laid his hand playfully chirruped, "Really?! WE'VE been talking about SEX!!"