Dinner

The ground was hot. It's not something she ever would've thought of, if she wasn't down on it, pressing her hands into it.

"We'll meet at six," he'd told her, "at the Zahir."

If she would've known that at 6pm, in the street near the Zahir, there would be an ugly explosion, a nightmare of glass and screams and smoke, she would've just stayed inside. She scrambled to find cover during the commotion, during the heated exchange in the street between two men dressed in rags. They were talking excitedly, with a demented fervor, just before the blast. The man had strapped explosives to his body, sending shards of shrapnel and corrosives out over where he had stood moments before. There were people lying in the street, the air stunk of flesh and sulphur. The confused cries of women searching for lost children volleyed with distant police sirens.

Terrified, she wondered where Abir was, if he'd been claimed by the attack. Crouched behind the car, the baleful thought made her feel ill and injured. Memories of the weeks before whirred by her, as flashes from a zeotrope dream. She remembered holding his hand as they'd crossed the street on their first date, the first time they had been to the Zahir. They were cautious then, not yet made mad by love and its longing. She thought of the time at the bazaar when he bought her an exotic pair of sandals with ornate straps, made of fine leather, meticulously stitched. She had protested much but Abir wouldn't take no for an answer. He had told her that she deserved something fine, that she was a woman of inordinate beauty; "to deny this is to disrespect God," he told her, "you should be adorned." She was unsure how much he paid the merchant that day; Abir was always a skilled bargainer and never expressed the slightest shame or shock for any expenditure. And he was right: the sandals had looked exquisite. They fit her as though they were custom tailored, as if she were a model to be painted or sculpted in marble. The straps drew attention to her flawless, well muscled calves, her immaculate feet, the smooth tan skin of her legs.

Now, in disbelief, peering out from behind the car, she searched for a sign of Abir. His tall thin frame, his way of holding himself, with grace and poise, upright and centered firmly in his feet. He seemed to her always, unshakable. As the smoke cleared she ran out from the cover of the car toward the restaurant. There were people who'd been blown to pieces, completely unrecognizable as human; raw chopped-meat corpses. She prayed one of these was not Abir. He wasn't meant to be a cheeseburger.

"Amuela! Amuela," a voice cried out.

She turned and saw Abir hurling himself at her through the restaurant door. He looked decisive and stern, deft; he moved toward her deliberately, absolutely. He embraced her with a fierce tenderness, briefly, and then placed his arm around her and quickly ushered her to the door of the Zahir. "You must come in at once, the streets are not safe," he told her. When they reached the door it opened slightly and Abir pressed her inside ahead of him. A second explosion, immediately behind her, and then a splattering of burger meat. Abir was dead; turned into a sloppy joe - hamburger helper.

The people inside screamed and gasped and shouted and threw tables and chairs against the slammed door, barricading themselves inside. Gunfire rang out in the street and everywhere there was the shrill sound of pandemonium. Amuela's white dress, stained with pieces of Abir, looked like it had been spritzed with ketchup - a casualtied condiment. She was stunned and mute with horror, numbed by the speed of her return from salvation to abjection. A bearded man, directing the survivors, shouting and wearing sweat-stained clothes, ordered someone to pull her down under a table. Two sets of arms grabbed her and quickly dragged her to safety. Another man, at the window, began shouting in a language she didn't fully understand and motioned to the bearded man. The man joined him beside the window and together they peered out cautiously. Then, more yelling, hurried movements from the back of the restaurant, and the emergence of a long cylindrical weapon; a rocket launcher. It was handed to the bearded man. He crouched down and balanced the cannon expertly on his shoulder, placing the opening in front of the broken window.

The sound of rushing, and a rapid displacement of air; the giant bottle-rocket squealed out the window like a smoky hissing comet. With the force of a wrecking ball, it crashed into a parked car, sending it spiraling into the air, engulfed in a sea of flames. The car landed on two guerrilla fighters, and set fire to several more. The ones that were pinned under the flaming vehicle cried out desperately, barking in burning agony, sizzling, popping like firewood.

The bearded man moved away from the window and yelled something to the rear of the room. Amuela's ears were ringing. Her whole body vibrated with a feeling of unreality. It felt like the world was trembling, caught in the grips of a violent seizure, shaking itself to pieces and swallowing its tongue. More men rushed past with machine guns and ducked in front of the windows inside the restaurant. The man with the beard turned to face the cowering inhabitants of the Zahir. He had only just begun to speak when a barrage of bullets whizzed through the room and caught him in the back of the head, launching strands of spaghetti from his skull out onto the wall. The frightened screams of the crowd came to an abrupt stop when two grenades burst through the windows, rolling across the floor with the aplomb of two rotund sheriffs, spurs ticking like time bombs.

Bodies clambered and clamored to get away from the spheres, but there was nowhere to run to.

Dinner was served.