8 She said she thought that was insane so he requested and received an opportunity to explain further.
9 A restaurant differs in kind from almost any other business. Viewed a certain way the consumption of food was not just necessary to but also the reason for our existence. Not surprisingly then all kinds of psychic implications result from the human-to-human provision of food. This in turn makes certain restaurants something like second homes.
10 Answer this then. Would you go into someone’s home and give precise instructions detailing what you wished to eat and drink?
“But don’t you have to tell people what they’re potentially ordering?”
“If they ask, but frankly it’s none of their business.”
“And it’s the same thing every time?”
“No it changes daily, I’m not a savage. Well it changes provided the Jankees haven’t kept me up too late the night before.”
“The what?”
“The New York Yankees. I’m poking fun at an accent I used to have.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you miss the place that caused it?”
“Fewer times.”
“I sure miss my accent. Transylvania caused it.”
“Thought I was picking up some Transylvanian.”
11 They laughed and held a common look a bit longer than usual.
12 Marybeth stood and walked toward the door because the thing she’d said about the coffee break was true and she needed to get back especially in light of some recent pointed comments.
“Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow for lunch and order Sandwich.”
“You’d know better than me.”
“True, I’ll be back tomorrow for lunch.”
“On one condition.”
“That?”
“That you leave yourself enough time. Hate to see rushed humanity. Life has sped up too much and it falls on us to slow it down.”
“Deal.”
13 She turned to leave and, somehow, for the first time, he noticed a severe limp, obviously long-term, that made her every step a form of struggle. The door had emitted its usual chime when she opened it and now the dolorous decay of that sound, the sight of her rhythmic exertions, and the shame at what he’d said all combined to form a low-level desolation.
* * *
HE is nearing the light. What began as almost a rumor of light has grown in intensity as he’s drawn near. But this is not a warm, comforting light. This is a harsh airy substance that exposes what until then had only seemed probable.
2 When he gets to the clearing it is the obvious site of an attempted uprising. The bodies are all men, former men. But not the right kind of men for what they tried. No these were men who gathered in a church to pray to an all-knowing God and men like that cannot be ready for what descended on them. Even worse, men like that could and obviously did draw the erroneous conclusion that the people holding them had a clear goal in mind, a goal separable from violence that served as motive and lessened their danger. It was the kind of error that ended lives and the kind of error he never seemed to make.
3 As with all the bodies he encounters he feels first relief then an animalistic welling anger that cries for release. He tamps it down and studies the bodies for information. There are maybe fifteen of them.
4 They have guns and knives but the guns, with the exception of one or two, don’t seem so deadly. He doubts anyway that they can operate theirs like he can his.
5 Then he sees something that promises conflict. Underneath one of the few bodies that evidences any sign of a struggle is a gun. The gun is very telling and will be the reason for the imminent conflict. It is old, previous century model, and has the look, feel, really all five senses, of having been repeatedly transferred from dead to living through multiple generations. This means it was not left there intentionally and is precisely the kind of thing its owner will be returning for.
6 It will be important for him to remember, when those men return, that they are responsible for the many deaths of people who were doing nothing more aggressive than sitting in a church.
7 He hears nature being disturbed about fifty meters away and quickly moves to where he can’t be seen. He soon draws the conclusion that, incredibly, just one person returns. This is the kind of refuse he is dealing with that will allow one man to move alone in the middle of what they like to claim is a military operation. He sees then the reason for the overconfidence. The guerillero is holding a very significant piece of killing machinery, as capable of making a bullet rapidly follow another as any such machine in the world.
8 He needs to think well now. In his left hand he holds his gun. It is not a good one but he can still shoot a lentil out of a grasshopper’s grasp with it. His right hand holds the machete. The guerillero looks for his gun among his victims.
9 The time for reflection has passed. Silence is required and the gun cannot provide it. He moves into the proper angle, steps forward with his left foot and, just as the degenerate killer looks up, swings his right hand over the top to throw the machete at an unfathomable speed into and through his neck. A small part of the blade comes out the back of his guerillero neck as he falls lifeless to the ground inches away from the gun he returned for.
10 When his surroundings fail to react he walks over to the body. At first he is almost sickened at the sight of what he has done. Then he remembers he has rid the world of a pestilent rat. He pulls out the machete without looking then wipes it on the uniform of the guerillero. He tells him <<Nos vemos en el infierno, hijueputa, y te hago lo mismo>> then he takes the automatic, straps it over his shoulder, and walks away.
11 Except he then hears breathing. It is a labored and dwindling breathing and it fills him with no fear just dread.
12 It is inhuman, the breathing. A bush dog lies heaving on the edge of the clearing. Through its fur he sees an open chest, one that inflates and deflates, the interior organism threatening to spill out.
13 Whether caused by human or fellow animal the injury is irreparable and incapable of being overcome no matter the will involved.
14 He is supposed to take his machete, he has done it before, and end this suffering. This is something that is taken as given.
15 He walks to the dog and places the machete just above the wound. The dog looks at him with just his dim eyes.
16 What’s the delay? Push it down.
17 It is a thought that has occurred to him often but he is not yet the type to have ever painstakingly set it down. The thought is more like an intuition that every living thing has a required allotment of suffering that must be met before allowing its release. Why seek to artificially terminate suffering when it’s the undoubted way of the world? So the danger here is not that the dog is suffering too much but rather that after a life of relative ease it has not suffered enough. Lowering the blade may upset the natural order in a way that has to be repaid.
18 He pulls the blade away and goes back into the jungle in continued pursuit.
* * *
HER entry may not have felt miraculous but her nearly every moment since had. The world is full of certain people like that and don’t let their relative infrequency detract from this fact’s significance.
2 For it is simply put a miracle of this world that someone like Selena ever enters it. The default expression on her face: smile. The wild tempest of her hair with its roiling black curls. The blushed circle of cheek on each side of the perfect nose.