Setting:
A crisp autumn afternoon in Oslo. Two friends, Lars and Maya, are walking through Frogner Park, sipping coffee from takeaway cups. Yellow leaves swirl around their boots.
Lars: (suddenly stops and gasps)
Maya! Don’t move!
Maya: (freezes mid-sip)
What? Is it a moose? A bear? A sudden existential crisis?
Lars: (whispers dramatically)
A black cat just crossed the path ahead. We have to spit. Three times. Now.
Maya: (laughs)
Lars, it’s 2025. You don’t honestly believe that a cat is an agent of misfortune, do you?
Lars: (already spitting discreetly over his shoulder)
Pf-pt-pf! Better safe than cursed. You don’t want bad luck clinging to your aura, do you?
Maya:
Aura? Lars, we’re engineers. We do data and models. Not… aura defense via saliva!
Lars:
Look, when I was ten, a black cat crossed our driveway and I didn’t spit. That evening, my bicycle tire burst, I lost my math homework, and my cousin hit me in the face with a snowball. Coincidence? I think not.
Maya:
Okay, first, your cousin hits everyone with snowballs. It’s his love language. Second, that bike tire was older than our constitution. And math homework? Let me guess — it was “eaten by your dog” the week before too?
Lars:
Joke all you want, but ever since I started spitting, nothing that bad has happened.
Maya:
Because spitting doesn’t prevent misfortune. You’re just noticing the bad stuff more when you don’t spit. That’s called confirmation bias. Your brain connects random events and builds patterns that feel meaningful.
Lars:
Or maybe it’s because Norse traditions are older and wiser than your science can explain. My grandma used to say, “If you anger the unseen, you’ll stumble even on flat ground.”
Maya: (smiling fondly)
And my grandma used to say, “Put on wool socks or your kidneys will freeze.” Doesn’t make it medically accurate, just…charmingly paranoid.
Lars:
But think about it: so many cultures fear black cats. Ancient Egyptians, Scottish lore, even sailors! That many people can’t be wrong.
Maya:
Actually, Egyptians revered black cats. They thought they brought good luck and even worshipped them! And science shows no evidence that the color of a cat’s fur affects your fate. If it did, insurance companies would definitely be charging more to people living near black cats.
Lars:
Insurance companies don’t factor in karma, though.
Maya: (snorts)
They are karma. But seriously, if you had to choose between carrying an umbrella or spitting when you see a cat, which one’s actually going to help when it rains?
Lars:
Okay, but what if I spit and carry the umbrella? Double protection.
Maya: (grinning)
At this rate, you’ll need a full-time spit assistant. I can build you a robot that auto-spits when it detects cats via camera.
Lars: (thoughtfully)
That… actually sounds awesome.
Maya:
Lars! You’re not supposed to like the idea! I’m trying to de-program you!
Lars:
Look, Maya. You believe in the Large Hadron Collider opening portals to other dimensions, and I let that slide.
Maya:
I don’t believe that. I said it was mathematically possible! There’s a difference!
Lars:
Same energy.
Maya: (laughs)
Fine, we’ll make a deal. You keep spitting if it comforts you, but only if you let me do a statistical analysis of your “bad luck” events from the past five years. If I can show there’s no pattern, you agree to stop.
Lars:
And if you find a pattern?
Maya:
Then I’ll install the SpitBot 3000 in your hallway. With voice-activated ancestral chanting.
Lars: (offers pinky)
Deal. But it better chant in Old Norse.
Maya: (hooks pinky)
Only if it spits in sync.
(They walk off, chuckling and sipping their coffee, while a nearby black cat calmly grooms itself under a bench, utterly unfazed by centuries of human superstition.)
End Scene
Science Vs Superstition 
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