The time was about mid day and lunch was pervading, when a young man and his grandfather were sitting at a market waiting for their server to come by and take their orders. This market was an oriental spot in North Seattle called Pacific Market. It was a thematically Persian owned store ran by a man from a Northwestern Iranian city called Tabriz; his name was Darius. The young man and his grandfather sat at a table covered by a plastic yellow cloth decorated with dull white lines running vertically and horizontally creating the pattern of squares.
“What a day” said the grandfather. “I feel so blessed to be here with my grandson. It’s just so wonderful.”
“Yes I do agree,” replied his grandson.
“I love my family.”
“Yeah, we do have a great one,” said the young man halfheartedly.
The server came by, it was Darius himself, and he asked them for their orders.
The boy had the chicken kebab with a yogurt soda, made by a Persian company based in Los Angeles, and the grandfather ordered an eggplant dish with a coca-cola.
Darius left them to their new conversation.
“What did you think of the movie last night?” asked the young man.
“It really rattled my bones. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“I felt like von Trier was attempting to create consequences, if…”
“So was everyone evil then?” interrupted the Grandfather
“No I don’t think you can look at the movie this way. Grace was not evil, she just made the only human decision that could be made in her kind of situation. The massacre was inevitable.”
“That’s very interesting. It was all about humanity. Well anyways, that movie made me feel really uneasy, in fact I’ve been feeling weird all day today.”
“Yeah me too. I have definitely been feeling on edge all day. Like I have bubbles inside of my stomach that are ready to burst on the slightest impetus.”
The young man said that last statement with true conviction but not with an air of connection with the one made previously by his grandfather. Maybe this was because, although the feelings were similar, both of them felt this as individuals and therefore had no need to relate to each other this oddly insignificant but dramatic anxiety. But in essence wasn’t this exactly what they were doing?
Darius carried the dishes out to the young man and his grandfather.
“Wow! this looks delicious!” the grandfather remarked excitedly with a glowing smile plastered across his face.
The grandson smiled in his direction, pleased that his grandpa was approving of the choice.
Darius expressed his thanks and walked away.
As they were eating the young man said something in passing about the quality of the food, when he noticed a fleck of spit fly from his mouth towards the direction of his grandfather. In an instant, not visible to the naked eye, the spit transformed inexplicably into a small fruit fly that began to hover over the dish of eggplant. There it flew for the next half-hour while the young man thought about this phenomenon in silence.
