Daily Story 1: Category: Sections from my books
Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 7:27PM 
---------------------------------
7:20 p.m. I’m halfway between Thompson and Sullivan Street when I look up and see the sign, “Suzie’s Finest Chinese Cuisine.”
“Suzie’s Finest Chinese Cuisine,” I mumble to myself, rolling the words around in my mouth just to see how it feels to actually utter such a bold and totally confident statement. Seconds later I was being seated at a table by a small Chinese man while another put a silver pot of tea on my small, square wooden table. A third man approached with a glass filled with ice and water. He also had a large menu which was colored blood red. He handed it to me with a quick, whipstart wave of the wrist.
And then the men disappeared and I sat alone at my table staring at the menu, the silver tea pot and the glass filled with ice and water. It’s precisely at this moment, while staring at the ice floating in the cool, clear water that my mind starts swimming upstream like so much summer salmon. Thoughts skip into my brain of muted lightning on the Fourth of July, a flower that’s blooming in a field just north of Des Moines, Iowa, porpoises mating in unchartered waters, fine woolen socks, the possessive form of a sidewalk, soft broad brimmed hats, a shrunken nose that has begun to grow again, a piece of music composed for two performers, black and white coloring books, biological organisms created in laboratories, volcanoes erupting molten ash, a man making a mirror just to see himself, ten rows of sleeping babies, a ringing golden bell, well-worn copies of The Farmer’s Almanac, warm mashed potatoes on a winter night, a deceased person who becomes a saint, uncontrollable urges to gamble, astronomical research by satellites, invisible sheets of ice, territories of continual international controversy, a chocolate layer cake, a vague term that expresses abstract art, a small pile of sparkling knitting needles, one number past a dozen, a sugary fluid in a plastic yellow glass, economic systems governed by paper currency, thoughts surrendering to a void, it is shining...it is shining.
I had a bowl of hot and sour soup, wontons in hot sesame sauce and steamed shrimp dumplings, Was it the finest Chinese cuisine to be had in this man’s world? I don’t know if I’m qualified to surrender such a conclusion, but it was pretty fucking good.
---------------------------------
Reader Comments (1)
This reminds me - NPR did a segment on "The Twilight Zone" this morning.
P.S. Mmmmmm....dumplings.