#89: Teacups

"You're a fat teacup," a man's voice said.

Grace looked up from her phone. Her game of Tanis wasn't going so well, and perhaps she hadn't turned the volume down. Sometimes the game spoke to her, encouraging her to buy more Tanis Coins. She'd been digging in a spot that wasn't unearthing any clues that a fossil existed, but bored, and still a few more stops to go. She mindlessly dug anyway.

"I like fat teacups," he said.

This time she'd been looking at him, without understanding why she'd been looking at him. The moment his meaty lips spoke, she recalled why.

Grace looked around at the other passengers, but the teenage girl had earphones in, and the man next to him was asleep.

"Little fat teacups," he said before snickering.

Was he talking about her breasts?

She studied him, searching for signs of him being a retard. Not that you can call it that. It was more than neural diversity, a term she remembered from the training they made her to suffer through. If she wasn't allowed to think of him as retarded, then surely he wasn't allowed to call her fat.

"I beg your pardon," she said with as much incredulity as she could muster.

"I like fat teacups," he said, smiling.

"Are you calling me fat?"

"Yes!" he said with excitement. "Lovely fat teacups."

The train slowed towards the next station.

In one quick moment, Grace reached over to the man's leg. She saw his approval and the shock of the teenage girl who'd been watching the exchange.

Grace grabbed the man's phone from his limp hand and squeezed her way off the train.

She was going to call everyone on his contacts list, telling them what he'd done. The doors closed, and she watched the man watching her as the train pulled out of the station.