Conversing

Last week we talked about the short attention span of  current generations (which needless to say include ourselves.)  Blame television, computers, smartphones, overload of information, there is nothing original about this disturbing observation.  My friend noted how long conversations have disappeared from most human interactions.   People exchange bon mots, one liners,  clever remarks, like the characters they see  in TV sitcoms. I couldn't disagree (we nevertheless conversed for a couple of hours.),

Today, in the same cafe where I read whatever volume of fiction I have grabbed off the shelf that day, sipping my Earl Grey tea, sitting among  a dozen or two of students, seniors, all of them staring at the screens of their laptop computers,  mostly Apple Macs, it was crowded, final exams are near, I noticed a couple of youngish people, a man and a woman, both about 25 years old, sitting at one of the two large tables there that can accommodate a half a dozen people each, two older women with computers beside them, this young pair conversing the entire time I was there, two full hours, they were there when I arrived and when I left, they had no laptop computers in front of them like everyone else around except myself, smartphones sitting on the table, unused except as sort of pacifiers, turning them over, up and down in their hands, the way older generations in olden times would occupy their hands with pencils or pens, and talking the whole time, the young woman facing in my direction, pretty, long hair, no makeup, large eyes which she often turned up toward the ceiling as if concentrating or seeking inspiration, her eyes showing the largest whites I have ever seen,  totally absorbed in the conversation, unaware of being observed or of anything going on in the cafe or outside its wide windows on the busy sidewalk, except as mentioned the ceiling or maybe the fans turning beneath it.  I was sitting too far from them to hear what they were saying, classical music playing on the speakers as always, and I only managed to determine that they were speaking Russian like native speakers.