The Restaurant by Christopher
Battle
The restaurant is a lattice of desire and satiation. The waiters
and waitresses bear both. My, waitress, for example, sates me
with a tomato-mozzarella-salami sandwich but instills a desire
as well: to peek at the tattoo that is peeking at me from the
waist of her low cut jeans, which seems to be inviting me with
inky tendrils to come for a short visit. Even though the waitress
is a bringer of want and satisfaction she is also a victim of
both; she wants me to stop staring at her backside but her ego
is also soothed with the thought that her tattoo attracts attention.
The warm salami-mozzarella mush mixes in a tide of saliva while
the tomato taste climbs up to the roof of my mouth for a better
vantage point. I decide to look into the pituitary nooks of my
fellow diner's heads to see what they might want and anti-want.
Here's what I see:
| Couple to my right: |
Man: |
want: |
sex with the waitress, same as me |
| |
|
anti-want: |
sex with his girlfriend; done, half-an-hour ago |
| |
Woman: |
want: |
her soup to come, she's been waiting |
| |
|
anti-want:
|
sex with her boyfriend; done, half-an-hour ago
|
| Three girls in corner: |
Girl 1: |
want: |
to go watch a television show |
| |
|
anti-want: |
food, same as Girl 2 |
| |
Girl 2: |
want: |
attention from Boy 2, same as Girl 3 |
| |
|
anti-want: |
food, same as Girl 1 |
| |
Girl 3: |
want: |
attention from Boy 2, same as Girl 2 |
| |
|
anti-want:
|
sleep, her coffee has energized her
|
| Two boys in center: |
Boy 1: |
want: |
food, he's hungry |
| |
|
anti-want: |
pot, he's nice and high |
| |
Boy 2: |
want: |
sex with me |
| |
|
anti-want:
|
conversation, he talked all the way here
|
| Man at the bar: |
Man: |
want: |
a return to tradition, the world is rootless |
| |
|
anti-want: |
sunshine, his head is saturated with summer heat |
My belly murmurs a digestive monologue as it dis-constitutes
my chewed sandwich. It seems that my fellow diners are a fairly
normal lot, so I feel comfortable enough to order Oma's apple
pie for dessert. I wink at the waitress's tattoo as it gently
waves from her receding hips. I feel satisfied and let all the
wants jumble into a current:
sesoxuteplevisioatntentioatntentiofonosedtrxadition
which of course just means motion rather than stasis,
life rather than death.
I dig into my pie with gusto.
Christopher Battle
Christopher Battle is from Texas but is currently working on a
Masters in Physics at the Universitaet van Amsterdam. He's had
stories published in The Smokelong Quarterly and edificeWRECKED.
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