Like any other day in Dubai, it was a tumultuous one. The Israelis had just broken their own ceasefire agreement by attacking worshippers in Al Aqsa. The UAE’s Mars probe had returned data that there was no oil on the planet. Another sheikh’s wife had been diagnosed with AIDS, given to her by her husband after a far too passionate night in St. Petersburg.
DM sat at a Greek restaurant in Dubai Downtown – the sort of place that had become his cheat day spot instead of McDonald’s or other such traps. Here, he could have some grilled meat, nicely made rice (not too much), maybe a potato for a treat and tzaziki on the side (come on – it’s basically yoghurt). Of course, lots of salad or grilled vegetables.
None of that stuff that made Greeks fat of course – whatever the hell it was that had led to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. MD’s friend Kayo had mentioned something about Greek pizzas dripping with cheese.
MD shuddered. Perhaps it was from having done such a lengthy Body Pump class that day.
He waited patiently for Ahmed, his high school friend and one of the few people he could tolerate from that time.
Of course DM knew Ahmed had arrived because he heard him before he saw him.
“What the fuck man, are you a q-tip?” Ahmed was asking a Saudi teenager who had dared to grow an Afro who happened to be passing by the restaurant entrance.
“My q-tip was in your mother,” the teenager replied defiantly in Arabic.
Ahmed paused at the restaurant entrance, fuming for a moment before walking in. A tall Egyptian, he had a camel-like face and thin frame that had gotten into way too many traffic disputes.
“Hey man how goes?” DM asked as Ahmed walked up to the table finally.
“Man it’s shit,” Ahmed said, shaking his head. “These women I don’t even know DM.”
“Shit, what happened?” DM asked as he signalled the waiter to bring the salads.
Ahmed sat down and kept shaking his head.
“Every woman I go to meet keeps asking me where I’m going to take them for holiday after we get married. What the hell.”
“Every one?”
“Yeah. Or they ask me what I’ll buy them. Y’ani purses, car. Fuck man.”
“How many has it been?”
“I’ve met 12 women now man. Every one same shit.”
“Fuck,” DM said, taking his first bite.
Ahmed dropped his fork.
“What about my personality man?!! Isn’t that enough??”
DM also put down his fork.
“Yeah definitely that should be enough. Just keep looking man, it’ll wor-“
“Brrroooooo!!!!”
DM froze. He’d heard the screech too many times before.
Ahmed and DM both looked at the kitchen entrance, which was now filled with the short, fat, squat body of Amrit, wearing what would for anyone else be a miniature cook’s uniform.
“Oh fuck, I can’t go to any restaurant.”
“Haaamaaaa, aaaabriiing mesaplaaaa!!!”
Amrit picked up a serving tray and waddled over like a puppy that just taken its first shit. On the table that had so far just had salad and a few pieces of grilled meat, Amrit began to pile moussaka, pizza and pasta.
“Aaaaputtaa extra cheese broooo” Amrit sang.
DM tried to count to ten, but the testosterone from his workout surged through him. He sprang up and delivered a sudden and deadly diamond cutter to Amrit right on the table, breaking it in half.
Walking away from the mess of body soaking in grease, DM felt years of stress melt away.
But the scene was not over. Ahmed, already in a state of agitation, began waving his arms.
“Who the fuck are you man?” he asked a groaning Amrit.
“Amrit, hello,” was the reply.
“Whoever the fuck you are, you interrupted me airing my gold digger problems.”
“Oh yes, I am somewhat of a gold digger myself,” replied Amrit, his eyes glazing over, “But made a small mistake and now I’m with a fat water buffalo who has a social media addiction.”
“You?” Ahmed was both curious and incensed. “You’re like those Egyptian and Palestinian women I’ve been seeing?”
Amrit, though lying with a fractured sternum in a pile of noodles, replied, almost like Satan lying on the floor of Hell in Paradise Lost (though far less majestic due to his Sindhi shopkeeper shape).
“Maaa if they’re a lot of gold diggers coming to you, maybe the problem is the common denominator.”
Ahmed hrumphed through his flared nostrils.
“I mean you are the problem maaa,” Amrit did not know when to stop.
“Shut the fuck up!” Ahmed screamed. “WHAT ABOUT MY PERSONALITY!!!!”
As he bellowed out the last part, Ahmed grabbed a nearby serving platter and smashed it on Amrit’s chest, further rupturing the sternum.
This was of course a Greek restaurant and so this action led to further ones. First waiters and kitchen staff as well as soon other diners all rushed up to throw plates on the floor in the fashion that made Greek restaurants so particular. Most of the plates were aimed at Amrit’s head.
As DM sighed in his car while watching men throw saucers at Amrit’s orbital bone while jumping and shouting “Opa!,” he crossed off his list one more restaurant he could no longer go to.
Rainbow Kandura 