Going through the Saturday paper at the café, she found a cartoon in one of the back pages. She liked it so much that all she could think was to tape it on the fridge as soon as she got home. It was going to make her smile each time she faced it. She could even imagine how her guests would admire the smart joke in the cartoon as they helped her with the dishes of a late dinner; but first she needed to break her own rule and start letting people in her precious kitchen.

The café was filled with the Saturday crowd hanging around to keep away from the heat of the street. Everyone was occupied with something, some flamed up conversation, some book, some laptop, some Sudoku, some espresso, some this or some that.

 

She came across the cartoon a little after she had started reading the cover story about a little girl, kidnapped abroad while on vacation with her family. She thought about that woman's blog telling about girls in Aboke, kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, but who cared about those unknown girls? This little girl in the paper was more of a little girl for the media, for the target audience of the media.

 

She didn't want to waste her time, either, reading depressing news that won't be recalled by anyone but the little girl's family a couple of weeks from now. But, already done with the rest of the paper, she needed something to read, so she turned to page 10 for the details of the kidnap, and saw the cartoon. Her eyes had moved to the end of the page for a quick glance. That was when she forgot about the sad story of the little girl, of all the little girls. Suddenly the cartoon became of utmost importance to her.

 

She kept the paper on the window side of her table so nobody could ask to pick up to read it. The paper was the café’s property... until the sunset. Once the customers left and the chairs were turned upside down, all the papers were thrown away to be replaced with the new ones in the morning. The sunset wasn’t very far. Until finding a way to take the cartoon home, she just had to hold on to the paper.

 

If she was less of that uptight being of hers, she wouldn't get paranoid about what other people might think, wouldn't worry about getting embarrassed, being pitied... that is, if any of those were even likely to happen. In that case, she could just take the paper and leave, or ask the café owner to save the cartoon page for her.

 

She looked at her options, but didn't see many. She could tear out the whole page. Or she could tear out the tiny space with the cartoon in it. Or she could use the plastic knife she used for her blueberry muffin, and have a decent cut out of the paper. Thinking about all this got her anxiety running wild. Every now and then she turned around to see if anyone was about to ask for the paper. The day was almost over and there was no way she could go out and pick up a new Saturday paper. No, this had to be it!

 

Then she realized. People could see her as she torn the paper before their eyes. That would make her look even more pathetic than she considered herself to be. It might be better to take the paper home altogether, she thought. Would that be stealing? Only a short while later the paper was going to the waste basket anyway, but she couldn't bring herself to take the paper as if it belonged to her. Taking just a piece of the paper was nothing, but taking the paper itself was very much like stealing, and she didn’t want to become a thief for a paper, not for a stupid cartoon in the paper!

 

Going through the paper, lost in thought as she was, she turned the page to the crossword puzzle. The crossword was gone! Where there should have been lines of black and white squares, there was a clean cut (revealing the contents of the page behind it. Someone else had gone to the trouble of piercing the paper and was perhaps keeping the piece in his pocket at the moment. No, not a “he” for one reason! This could only be the job of a she, only a “she” would bother to have such a clean cut of the paper in absolute secrecy. She started looking around to find the one with the crossword in her pocket, if she still kept it in her pocket.

 

She ran her eyes over the men and women in the café. Her glance met a man's, sitting two tables away from her. The man produced a smile with his thin lips and moved his looks to the book he was holding. She was being watched! All this time her mind was occupied with the cartoon in the paper, someone was watching her, trying to see her thoughts. Maybe he was the one who took the crossword and now was checking to see if anyone was about to find out about him. Would it be a far-fetched guess to say that he was as paranoid as herself?

 

She looked at his hands to see if they were capable of such delicate handling. The man's book was, at least, 500 pages thick, still it looked tiny in his hands. Those hands couldn't have removed the crossword so perfectly. He could have been watching her for some other reason. She thought she was being careful and not letting anyone know what she was up to. Perhaps he wanted to read the paper after she was done with it, perhaps he was after the cartoon just like her.

 

 

It was the second time she was looking at the cartoon with a clear mind. The instant she had seen it, her mind had rushed, first, to meditating on the ways of taking it home, then, to worrying about how people may judge her, and finally, to imagining things that weren't likely to happen. Her mind had gotten so busy that she hadn't done the wise thing and looked at the cartoon closely.

 

She got puzzled, even hesitated for a second. She wasn't sure if she was looking at the right page, at the right cartoon. She turned the paper around to see the other fold, above the cartoon. Yes, there, was the continuing story about the little girl's kidnap, it was the right page. Her thoughts got blurry, and bits of disappointment started crawling inside her.

 

Did she really find this cartoon amusing? It had a smart joke, but she wasn't a big fan of smart jokes on religion and politics. The cartoon she went crazy about seconds ago, consisted those topics mostly. She was confused. How could she ever imagine putting that kind of thing on her fridge? What would her guests think of her when they saw it? It was a good thing she wasn't planning to break her own rule and start letting people in her precious kitchen. It was even a better thing she found out about her misjudgment, and never took the cartoon home with her.

 

She raised her eyes to see the man with the book coming her way. She still had that baffled look on her face, questioning herself about the cartoon. Before the man pronounced his words, his reaching hand made it clear to her. She was ready with her reply.

 

"Here, you can have the paper. I'm so done with it."