UNTITLED

by Krammer Abrahams

I brought a plant with me to the Chinese restaurant. I don't know if the Chinese restaurant allowed plants, but there was no sign on the door. "A table for two please?" They tucked me in the corner. I put my plant at one end of the table. I sat at the other. There was a family of seven Asians sitting around a circular table over by the fish tank. The fished watched them. Some of the members of the family ate fish. I wonder if any of the fish threw up a little bit in their mouth. If the fish did, it did not stop them from watching the family eat. I guess there was nothing else for them to do.

There were three ducks behind a glass display. They weren't alive anymore. Their heads had been cut off. The top of them ended at the neck.

A nervous oriental man brought me a menu. I thanked him. He bowed to me. He wore a white collared shirt and black pants. There were some waitresses in the same uniform. I thought, "If the service is good and I end up coming back I think I will wear a white collared shirt and black pants when I return. They might even put me to work. I don't think I would mind this even though the majority of the people I wait on would probably ask, 'Have you ever waited on customers before?' I will laugh and tell them I haven't. 'I don't work here,' I will tell them."

My plant didn't think this was a good idea and thought I should just order.

A boy and his mother sat at a table next to me. Their waitress brought them a plate of crabs. They were dead too. I bet these crabs were walking on the same beach as the ducks when the driver of the number three supply truck scooped them up in a sack and brought them to this restaurant.

The crabs and the ducks did not like each other before the driver in the number three supply truck scooped them up.

"We are mortal enemies," said the crabs.

"Only one of us can exist in this world," said the ducks.

They didn't know any better. They didn't know anything else existed. Sometimes they saw airplanes, but they each thought they were duck gods. The crabs cursed them. Other times whales would float to shore and get stuck. These were considered crab gods. The crabs prayed to these whales for many months as they rotted away. Other than that they both thought, "If we can just get rid of them then the world will be ours."

This is why when the driver of the number three supply truck scooped them up they were so shocked. Inside the giant sack they both thought, "We were ill-informed from the start. I didn't think there was anyone else."

The ducks and crabs spent the rest of their lives, which was only a few hours (they were delivered to the Chinese restaurant not too long after this), thinking about how they had been wrong. When they were finally let out of the sack the ducks got their heads chopped off and the crabs got their bodies cracked open. Eventually little boys and their mothers would eat them.

One time an elderly couple saw the driver of the number three supply truck scoop up the ducks and crabs. As he was carrying them back to his number three supply truck they asked him what he was doing.

"I am the number three supply truck for a Chinese restaurant," he said.

"Why did you take those crabs and ducks?" they asked.

"I already told you."

"No, why would you do something like that, harming those innocent animals."

"I don't know," he said and walked over to his number three supply truck. He did not think about what the elderly couple said for the rest of the day. When he got home there was a cable bill in his mailbox.

"Oh," he thought and held it up to show them, but the elderly couple were no longer there.

My waiter came back to my table. I told him what I wanted. He shook his head. I pointed at the menu. He pointed at the menu. I shook my head. He shook his head. Then he walked away. My flower and I then had to wait for our food.