Jessica Lowe, Contributor

Malcom was immediately jerked from his thoughts when Heather reached across the table and clasped his hand in hers.

"What's the matter dear? You seem a bit distracted."

He had not realised that he had been watching something float in his champagne for the last 15 minutes. It was a tiny speck, almost invisible if one was not staring. It could have been backwash, or possibly the residue of something the humble looking waiter had slipped into his drink.

The latter he highly doubted, but he longed to experience something that exciting or dangerous. He imagined himself creating a commotion in the quaint little restaurant and laughed to himself at the absurdity of his thoughts.

"Why are you laughing, Malcom?"

Resumed talking

He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn't realise he had laughed aloud.

"I wasn't laughing dear, I was only clearing my throat. Please continue."

He smoothed Heather's hand over with his hands, and when she had relaxed, she resumed talking - something about the current state of the economy and the lackadaisical attitude of her co-workers, among other things.

He looked on, wide eyed and mystified and continued to feign his interest in the conversation. He began seeing the words trail from her gabbing gums and wildly flapping lips and watched as they landed somewhere on her plate.

He nodded and made appropriate facial gestures and when he thought Heather was satisfied with his pretend-interest, he began looking around the restaurant. He was sure this time to add the necessary 'I agree' and 'yes that's true' - partly to keep Heather unaware of how little he actually was adding to the so called discussion, and partly to try to force himself to try and be interested.

When he looked at Heather, he tried to look at her through the eyes of his business associates, his mechanic or the onlookers in the restaurant.

To them, Heather was attractive, sophisticated, funny, and passionate - an all round good catch.

Screamed 'boring'

He figured that people thought she was passionate because she always spoke so loudly and she had mastered the art of the hand gesture.

For Malcolm, Heather just screamed 'boring' and he felt like it literally echoed from the mountain tops.

Her hair was boring, her neck long and boring, her clothes were fashionable, yet boring and her body was boring.

She was just boring. Boring, boring, boring and he laughed to himself when he repeated that her neck was long and boring.

"What's boring?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Malcolm said dryly.

"You just blurted out rather loudly, the word 'boring'. Is everything alright?"

When he finally realised what had happened, quite a few of the restaurant's patrons were staring in their direction.

"I'm sorry, love. It's just that the atmosphere of the restaurant has gotten boring. Maybe we should start visiting some other places. How does that sound?"

Before Heather even responded, Malcolm became entranced with his thoughts again about how boring the restaurant truly was.

He did not understand why he was complaining; the reason he had continued going was the fact that the place was consistent.

But now the walls were boring, the soup was boring, the wine was boring, the patrons were all boring and Heather, like the walls, was definitely boring.

He imagined his dead body being lowered into a shallow grave because Heather had bored him to death. Heather is definitely boring.

Walked out

"Boring Malcolm Rice!!!? How dare you call me boring?"

"Who said anything about boring?"

"You just said Heather is definitely boring."

"No, I didn't, I was actually lamenting on how beautiful you look."

"Mr Rice, I will not argue with you!" and with that, Heather grabbed her purse and marched out the door.

When Malcolm finally looked around the other patrons were averting their eyes, or speaking hastily to their waiters while others were speaking in muffled tones about what had just happened. He simply checked his watch, took a sip of the now flat champagne, adjusted his tie and began to eat his meal.

But like he feared, the meal was infinitely boring.