Grief Bargaining at Brunch

Clatter of cutlery, pancakes half sliced and an espresso knocked back like a shot of tequila.

“Bathroom break,” says Zola, rising from her chair, “but first a quick thought experiment!”

She’s like this, Zola. Leaves you with something to ponder while she’s gone, albeit briefly. God forbid I check my phone or bite my nails or watch the birds dive.

And the birds do dive. Black hailstones sprouting wings.

“If you could have brunch with anyone dead or alive, who would it be and why? Besides me.”

“Damn, I was going to say you.”

Zola scrunches her nose and mi-mi-mimics my words with mouselike inflection: “Damn, I was going to say you.”

“And logistically speaking, how—”

“Logistically speaking, you’re granted a time machine.”

“Great. Realistic. So, is my little brunch voucher transferable?” Terms and conditions – always check them.

“Non-transferable.”

Or, with Zola, negotiate them. “Can’t I transfer it to Khalid? I’d have him meet Akhenaten, the pharaoh who pushed monotheism before Abrahamic r—”

“So, can he marry you or not?”

I shrug.

“And,” she says, throwing her handbag over her shoulder, “somehow Akwhomever’s going to convince him to marry an agnostic woman?”

“If I could just broaden his—”

“Horizons, I know. Don’t run away now.” She pistol-points a finger at me, then her footfall crunches across the pebble sea. I stare into my mason jar of orange juice—what if? —and stir the ice cubes—clink, clink—with my squishy paper straw.

The world stills, and on the wind drifts maple syrup and melted butter. If I’m being honest, very honest, with myself, I still harbour the hope that Khalid will one day become agnostic himself – or, at the very least, desanctify scripture.

And what if he met the pharaoh who deified the disk in the sky? I chew like grass what remains of my cold croissant, as absentminded as the swing of a cow’s tail swatting a fly.

*

Akhenaten surveys the brunch table, his blue khepresh jutting from his head like a squid.

“Why, it is Aten,” he says, as leaf-sifted sunlight shimmers across his palms.

“Who’s Aten?” asks Khalid.

“The sole god. The creator of all things.”

“You mean Allah?”

“Watch how his rays caress your skin, the table, the—what’s this?” he touches the gleaming Moka pot, and winces as he retracts his burned fingers.

Khalid chuckles and pours him a cup of coffee, the brown liquid swelling and foaming ochre. "Here."

Akhenaten sniffs then recoils from the bitter thing.

“So, you think the sun is God?”

“Look how he nourishes everything,” says the pharaoh, biting into a fig. “Why, do you think God possesses a face?”

“Not necessarily, in Islam we—”

“What’s Islam?”

“Well, the angel Gabriel revea—”

“Gabriel who?”

Akhenaten scans the table: the pitcher of water, the muddy coffee. “Please have the slaves fetch us some beer.”

He catches the eye of a waitress. “Sla—”

Khalid claps a hand over his mouth. “We don’t have slaves anymore.”

“No slaves?”

“And beer is haram. If you drink it, you might go to Hell.”

“What’s Hell?”

“An eternal pit of flames.”

“Well now, that doesn’t sound very nice.”

He frowns, and with his little finger picks red fig flesh from between his teeth. “My belly’s already full of it, so now I’m condemned to burn perpetually in—what’s it called?”

“Hell," assists Khalid.

“…in Hell, thank you. But if I’m in Hell, then where are you?”

Khalid starts in his seat, does a double take at the table laden with fruit, the swaying trees, the garden bed wide-awake with vegetables. He breathes a sigh of relief.

“You didn’t know, so maybe you’re not in Hell, after all.”

“Well, that’s the problem with anachronisms, isn’t it?”

“Did you know,” Khalid pipes up, “that Moses lived in Egypt?”

*

Damn. I slap myself in the forehead, then knead the encounter from my mind with firm fingers. Zola’s footfall crunches its way back, and I glance up and catch her winking eye.

“How many stars?” I call – she rates bathrooms on her blog.

“Two.” She slides into her chair, limbs lolling like a rag doll, and lies there a while, double-chinned, her eyes closed behind tortoise-shell sunglasses.

I take another soggy sip of juice and pop a buttered strawberry in my mouth – the way Khalid does.

And like a gavel, Zola slaps the table. “So, does Khalid decide you’re the love of his life and elope with you?”

“He ultimately traces the pharaoh to Moses.”

“Right. Should have opted for the Old Kingdom, you know, Nut and all that.”

“Nut?” I point at the ramekin of pecans.

“The sky deity – she swallowed the sun each night and gave birth to it each morning.”

“Ouch.”

“Right?”

“Or Enheduanna,” I suggest. “Good old Mesopotamian polytheism.”

“Why not the Greek Pantheon?”

“Or the Chinese Mandate of Heaven?”

“Or Spinoza?”

Yeah, why not? But brainstorming doesn’t help and, if anything, my hope pops like a balloon blown too big. The tears knot up my throat, my chin, before they trickle over.

I even made Khalid a pie chart recently. What did homo sapiens—homo sapiens, not neanderthals or homo erectus, but homo sapiens! — What did homo sapiens do for the 296,000 years preceding the placement of Abraham? But turns out he doesn’t like pie. See that tiny slice of blue? That’s four thousand years: Abraham until now. And no amount of numbers (or hypothetical time machines) will qualify me for love.

From across the table, Zola slides her hand into mine, brushes her thumb over my knuckles. And the waitress approaches, of course – excellent timing.

“Can I get yo—” She gasps, and her eyes dart across the table for the culprit. “What’s wrong?”

“Her boyfriend won’t marry her,” reassures Zola, and the silence unfolds like a sheet.

The waitress nods, lips pursed. “Well, have you tried begging him?”

“No.”

“How about grovelling?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer but cradles our empty dishes and wanders off.

As the crunch of pebbles fades, I swear I can hear a cricket chirp.