The Door

Everything is going swimmingly. 

The appetizers have just arrived, quail with pomegranate, pine nut and Romanesco for her, the Iberico croquettes with smoked saffron aioli for myself, and we toast the arrival with the 2017 Rossignol-Trapet pinot noir. 

Everything is as it should be.

Then the tremor hits, and my left hand shakes violently. The fork slips through my fingers and lands with a “tang” on the wabi-sabi inspired concrete floor. She looks at me, a mix of sadness and regret. I take my eyes off her, and stare at the fork, which lies tines-down on the floor, flecks of aioli, orangish-yellow, paint the floor like a work of modern art. 

I can’t breathe.

I feel like I’m going to throw up. 

I turn back to her, and she’s trying to ignore me, sipping her wine in profile, legs crossed, the first two fingers of her left hand graze her cheek, which has turned pinkish-red from embarrassment. 

I whip my eyes back to the fork, which is now vibrating with such violence that it’s hard to actually tell it is a fork.

 

Bile rises into my throat. Pressure builds behind my eyes; I feel like they are bulging, like some bad-animation cartoon. Things feel like they’re about to explode when the waiter covers the fork with a crisp linen napkin.

“Perhaps the gentleman would like to freshen up before the main dishes arrive?” 

Ah, the main dishes. Casarecce pasta in a spicy Sicilian garlic and anchovy sauce with kale, Calabrian chilies and Pecorino Romano cheese for her; and for me, the “Fabada Asturiana” – a whole pig plate of roast loin, chorizo, confit and bacon in white bean and tomato stew.

I’m sweating. Profusely. Cartoonish, even. She’s even more embarrassed, and has taken to presenting her back completely to me. The waiter looks slightly pained/slightly amused.

I am confused by this. 

“Sir, perhaps the time is right for you to exit through the door toward the back.”

I wobble as I rise, legs unsure of their place under my weight. My napkin tumbles to the floor. She doesn’t acknowledge my presence. The waiter grabs my elbow, twists me toward the back of the restaurant and launches me forward. One foot in front of the other, I make my way past the open kitchen, down a narrow hallway, where I come face-to-face with a giant metal door. 

The door has no business being in a three-star Michelin restaurant; it’s spray painted black and covered in graffiti. I squeeze my eyes tight, open them, and blink rapidly. I take a hold of the knob and turn, but the door doesn’t open out. I turn the knob again and press forward. There’s a whoosh of air, blinding white light, unconsciousness. 

And I’m in my bed. The dog raises her head, then lays back down. My wife shifts her weight ever so slightly, sighs. 

In the darkness, I can just make out the door, but it seems to be fading into the night. Just like my memory. 

Just before the door disappears completely, a crack of light - ever so slight - emerges. And a disembodied voice whispers.

“We humans tend to misremember the critical details, that’s why we have dreams. To reset them.”