His gaze went from my left eye to my right. “It’s the conundrum of our times,” he whispered, like he was no longer talking about soup. “Your eyes are really pretty.”

Now it was I who blushed, and it made me look away, which made me see how close my stop was. “Would you like your question now?” I asked.

“Yes, please.”

“If animals could talk, which would be the rudest?”

“Cats,” he answered quickly. “Or those monkeys in tourist spots who steal your things. Or sharks. I can’t imagine them being overly pleasant company.”

“The smartest?”

“Uh, elephants because they never forget a thing. Or octopi. Personally I think octopus are from outer space and landed here a few thousand years ago by mistake. If they came here looking for intelligent life forms, they missed the mark. Humans might have opposable thumbs and mastered how to make fire, but as a species, we’re pretty fucking stupid.”

I snorted. “Funniest animal if it could talk?”

“Lemurs. Or Tapirs. Maybe giraffes. Or zebras. Oh wait, maybe that’s just because of Madagascar. I don’t know.”

“Most political animal if they could talk?”

“Pigs. But again, maybe that’s just an Orwellian response.”

“I love how your mind works.”

He blinked. “You do? Because it’s a scary place sometimes.”

We turned right at the intersection, which meant our time was almost up. “Okay, your turn with my question.”

“Oh, okay. And again, this one is from Angus, so I apologise in advance. Which sport would be the funniest to add mandatory amounts of alcohol to?”

I chuckled. “Um, I’m not a huge fan of any sport really, but I think drunk synchronised swimming would be hilarious. If they didn’t drown, of course. Floor gymnastics would be pretty funny. Except for the injuries.”

“Yeah, I could imagine if I tried to do that ribbon twirling after a few wines, it wouldn’t end well. And the balance beam…” He shook his head. “That was a lame question, sorry.”

“No it wasn’t.” The bus pulled into my stop. “But, if that was Angus’ question, what was yours?”

“Well, it’s kind of stupid too.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Merry will probably kill me for asking this but this is something I’ve often wondered but never asked anyone, so okay,” he said. “Do you think maths is something we invented or something we discovered?”