The Flower Duet

"What do you want to eat?"
"Mineral water."
"Some nice mineral water."
"Cold."
"Cold, of course. Was yesterday's cold enough?"
"Veal cutlet with sage."
"A nice veal cutlet with sage."
"And a chicory salad."
"A nice chicory salad."
"Large."
"A nice large chicory salad. You have chosen well, sir. Oh, What you are looking at is the memorial park... From the other war."
"I know. Every plant has a label with the name of someone who died."
"At the beginning yes, but now the labels aren't there anymore."
"Memory doesn't last forever."
"That's it."
"Avoid ending up on a label."
"That's it."
"Avoid eating salad from the root end."
"That's it."
"And bring me the salad so I can dress it while waiting. Otherwise, if you bring it with the cutlet, the cutlet will get cold while I dress the salad."
"Exactly. Right away sir, a nice salad."
"And a boiled egg, with the yolk soft, which you were incapable of doing yesterday."
"You'll see, sir, today, it will be the way you like: a nice soft boiled egg, with a nice soft yolk, a nice drop of yolk inside."
"And bring it to me unpeeled. I'll peel it myself. I don't want to see fingerprints on the white. Yecch! The boiled egg is an immaculate food. There's no reason to get it dirty."
"Yes, indeed, sir, I'll bring it with its nice shell intact, on a nice little plate."
"Hurry up, then."

-Aldo Buzzi, A Weakness for Almost Everything