Fatu was making a mochachino for her mistress who as of late had a penchant for exotic things.
She made it according to custom but once she had put the cream and chocolate on top, Fatu then put some organic honey in the mochachino.
'For the sweetness', she mumbled under breath like the words were part of the drink and watched as the thick viscosity of honey cracked the surface and slid through the cocoa, slowly reaching, grasping for the bottom.
This was a curious phenomenon and one that would capture the interest of many people, but Fatu had seen this before and simply looked at it with glazed eyes. She put a sliced lemon in the coffee, placed the coffee on the mirror-like tray that was already holding two glasses of coca cola, and left the kitchen in the direction of the noise in this modern house in Kuwait City.
Fatu walked through the white corridor like a ghost in limbo waiting for judgement. 'What are they watching?' she asked herself, not with curiosity but with mild panic, and steeled herself. She entered the living room almost always awash with the chatter of daytime talk shows.
The living room was spacious with white sofas all around the room and a large flat screen television on one of the walls. It looked like a showroom. It held a family that was as white as the showroom around them and looked like mannequins for the purpose of atmosphere.
There was a woman sitting cross-legged on one of the sofas, with a teenage girl's head on her lap, stroking her long black hair. The girl had her thumb in her mouth. Both had their eyes glued on the screen.
There was a boy in the room, a curly headed boy, a teenager too, who glanced up at Fatu when she entered. The tray could be floating for all the emotion and recognition he gave Fatu, a woman who nursed him all his life. He too languidly gave his attention back to the television, leaning against the sofa rest, as the voices raised.
Fatu paid the raised voices no mind, didn't hear them, didn't see who had raised them, and put the glasses on a glass table in the centre of the living room so softly that not a clink was heard. The mother gently pushed the girl off her.
'Drink something boy, drink!' she said to her son who turned to his mother and then lifted himself from the sofa rest with a peevish look. He clearly didn't want to drink anything, but sat up and took the glass regardless as did his sister.
'Is it the same?' the mother asked apprehensively of Fatu.
'Only a smidgeon, mother,' Fatu answered.
'Good. I only like a smidgeon,' she said, her habitual way of discussing the honey that was in the coffee. She liked the image of being a moderate and taking the little spoon from the saucer she stirred the coffee, the honey resting at the bottom, and created such a lightening swirl that it looked like a sandstorm brewing at the bottom until it enveloped the entire glass.
Fatu effaced herself and left in place of her own voice the raised voices of the television.
'He walks prostitutes like they're family dogs! Him, a married man!' a young female voice shouted. 'And he expects me to walk next to them. How can I, a Muslim woman, walk next to her husband and his prostitute? What is he asking me to do!'
The voices raised themselves to a higher pitch for a slipper had been thrown.
Fatu heard and saw nothing, as, thankfully, she told herself, nothing had made an impression. She returned to the kitchen.
This was a kitchen also like a showroom, with the windows blurred out, with all the modern appliances in attendance, including the magnets on the giant refrigerator. One was an image of a carnival girl wearing a sleeveless green dress and a bonnet with various fruits in them. Fatu glanced at it blankly and sat on a stool next to the closed windows, still holding the tray.
She started wiping the tray and saw her reflection within it. A slim faced dark skinned woman, whose look was hovering between apprehension and fear, with the needle ever going towards the latter. She rubbed and rubbed the glass tray even when it couldn't be any clearer as her eyes reddened in concentration. Despite what she thought, the television did make an impression and try as she might, she couldn't stop the words from penetrating her mind.
'He walks prostitutes like family dogs,' the voice had said, '…is that what goes on here, outside?' she wondered, as she slowed her rubbing, the needle crossing the threshold to make an obtuse angle towards fear.
'Strange. What an image!' The circles narrowed, her eyes began to water, her body tensed and the needle snapped, returning dead centre until it became motionless. Fatu began to dream.
A robed man walked outside, a handsome and not yet middle aged man, with stylish grey in his hair and beard. He walked with a lazy gait and a woman beside him, dressed in a burka whose gait showed that she was in the age of excess, indulgence, in other words, she had recently married.
The streets were busy, the glass buildings reflecting a bright sun. On the right side of the man was a tall, highly attractive Latin woman with long black hair dressed in a short pink skirt and a loose white tank top and a leash around her neck. The leash was held loosely by the robed man. The woman had her lips pumped up and was heavily made up with her bulging top indicating that she had breast implants, her slim legs showing that she had silicone in her butt too.
The woman on the leash had an inscrutable look, the man had one of contentment while the other woman with the burka had on, well, her look was indeterminate.
Despite the woman being an obvious prostitute with a leash on her neck, no one batted an eyelid and people went about their daily lives like this was a normal thing watching the robed man walking the sex worker like a dog, watching a smiling old man appear, reaching for the girl, watching her look remain inscrutable, watching the robed man's look remain contented, watching the veiled woman retain her mystery, watching, watching, Fatu stopped watching as the dream cleared from her eyes.
Immediately she became agitated. She got up and opened the freezer, took out the ice cube tray, cracked it, and put some ice cubes in each of her hands. As she wrapped her hands around the cubes, feeling the ice stick, the pain mounting, but felt the searing, cutting ice burn away the agitation, the water freezing her fingers, restoring her to calmness.
Fatu dried her hands and returned to her mundane tasks, her life with no new impressions, in limbo, for a woman who had not seen the outside for fifteen years, the last thing that she wanted to do was dream about men dogwalking women because she might want to go outside and have a look...and that would mean judgement.
These daydreams had been occurring more frequently of late, but curiously and mercifully her nights had remained dreamless.
'Why am I becoming more susceptible to the dreams of day,' she asked herself, 'while having no dreams at night? And why all of a sudden do I dream at all after so many years of dreamless days and dreamless nights?'
She felt a slight billowing of agitation, and put her cold hand on her cheek. The agitation dwindled into nothingness.
A click of a door made Fatu's lips spread into a tender smile. Hopeless, impressionless mundanity would be close at hand under whose waves thoughts, ideas and dreams get submerged and she walked out of the kitchen to grasp it so she could hold it tight. The man of the house had returned. The reason she went up to him was because he never returned home empty handed, always giving Fatu something to do, something mundane, and she looked forward to stocking the fridge and filling the shelves.
The man of the house was the man of her dream, in a way, in that he was robed and speckled with grey, a handsome, well built man with long greasy hair. She had not seen too many Arab men recently and so imagined all Arab men to be like her master.
Her master had just closed the large wooden door when Fatu approached him, ignorant of the noises that indicated that he was not alone. When she realised he had company, she froze, and looked at two men carrying a large water tank.
'In there, to the left. Put it in the living room.'
They were two curly haired Arab men, darker skinned than the master, with moustaches and dark follicles on the sides of their faces. These lads preferred the Bohemian look of a singular moustache as opposed to the full beards their ethnicity had a genetic disposition to. A strange look as the darkness and depth of their facial follicles never allowed a truly clean shave - a monument to their rebellion but they had that style nonetheless.
The Arab Bohemians rolled the water tank past the frozen and horrified Fatu. She shivered as she saw what was inside: various coloured fish with the bottom having a multitude of lobsters stacked on top of each other. They had their claws tied up.
Fatu watched the water tank roll past her and with increasing dread her eyes sharpened and focused on the strange eyes of the lobsters that were half open, half closed. She tried to breath but couldn't and felt the water press around her, trying to enter her body.
'Fatu!' her old man shouted. 'Come take this.'
Fatu felt the sharpness of breath enter her lungs again and the water around her evaporate.
'God bless you, father,' Fatu exclaimed gratefully, and took the bags she was handed with shaking hands. As soon as she touched the bags, the feeling of the everyday returned to her, the trembling ceased, the plastic of the bags and its content acting like a tranquillizer.
She returned to the kitchen with the sedating plastic in her hands. She placed the bags on the counter of the kitchen, taking a moment to steel herself before she released the bags, and let go. Almost immediately the colourful fish came back to her, swimming around the water, smoothly cutting through the liquid blue.
'What is going on today?' Fatu asked herself musingly. 'Why am I chased around by these new things, leaving such impressions on me that I can't be still…'
Agitated, she emptied the bags of their possessions. Each item brought her closer to restoration. She brought out the dates, the sugar and when she pulled out a huge bottle of coca cola a perfect calmness descended upon her. She hugged the coca cola bottle like it was her baby before putting it inside the fridge.
Fatu thought the plastic bag was empty but when she lifted it she felt that the bag was slightly heavier than it should have been. She looked inside and saw a spice bottle. Frowning she reached inside it and pulled out the little clear bottle with its orange top. Once out, she looked at the label and saw it said 'seafood seasoning'.
Once again she saw the fish in the tank, the tied up claws of the lobsters trailing after them; the water enveloping her, trying to enter her body; and once again it was a voice which broke her out of the waking dream.
'Have you ever cooked a lobster before?' the voice asked when Fatu's eyes focused on the man it belonged to.
This was a portly, pommaded man, clean shaven and debonair whose face was shining with face cream. Fatu suddenly began to smell the strong scent of oud which the man had sprayed upon himself with admirable liberty.
'Cooked what, brother?' Fatu asked while not closing her mouth even after she had finished speaking.
The man appraised her for a moment, fixing his own eyes on those of Fatu's which he decided were fearful.
'I suppose you don't. Fish? The ones with shells. For which you use this.'
He came up towards the frozen Fatu and gently pried open the spice bottle from her hand. They measured the same in height.
'I've never seen this kind of flavouring before,' said Fatu timorously. Her initial thought that the man was part of her dream was beginning to fade. 'I'm used to the simple kind. The cubes of Maggi.'
'What about lemon?'
'Yes for -'
'And salt?'
'Of course.'
'Pepper?'
'Brother, where -'
'This is just a mixture of all of them spices.'
Unbeknownst to Fatu he had quickly opened the bottle. She saw him bring it to his lips and blow it on her face. A strong smell of lemon and coriander struck her as she staggered back.
'Motherfucker,' she gasped, as the portly man laughed a high and feminine laugh. 'What did you do to me?'
She looked at the door he had just come through like she wanted to escape but the portly man came closer not actually blocking her path but expressing a wish that she should stay. In a theatrically placative way he exclaimed:
'Sorry, are you allergic to pepper?'
Fatu felt her nose irritated and in quick succession began to sneeze several times. A sharp liquidless sneeze.
'Dear, dear. If I knew you were allergic I would have been more careful. Why didn't they tell me you had allergies?'
Fatu held her hand up indicating that he should stop. Raising herself erect, with watering eyes and a distorted voice she asked:
'What did you say you were using that for?'
Smiling the portly man said:
'To cook the lobster. We might as well get it now. I'll go get one. They want one for lunch.'
'But do I need to be here -' she started to ask but the man had already gone. Her nose started to run. She went over to the sink to throw water on her face, feeling her sinuses blocked by the pepper he had blown on her face.
'Did he do that on purpose?' she asked herself. 'Was that a prank?'
This thought only occupied her for a moment as she dried her face. She began to think of what he said he was doing there. To teach her how to cook a lobster he said which he was now bringing. She listened to the noises that came from the room where the family was with the water tank and the man who Fatu figured then to be a professional seafood chef.
This chef returned with the lobster in hand. He was holding it in such a way that the long and red antennae moved in the air in a slow, exploratory manner that mimicked a human's movement underwater. The chef noted her horrified look.
'Ugly thing isn't it? Frightful creature; trust me I remember the first time I seen it.'
Fatu's sinuses began to unblock, a delicious release, and she started to smell the lobster's scent. An exhilarating, wild smell. Such an impression it was making on her!
She wanted to back away from the chef, the claws of the moving lobster and the impression they were making, but the kitchen wasn't that big so she found herself backing into the fridge with the dancing carnival girl.
'But do I need to be here?' she asked pitifully. 'If this is a special occasion then I shouldn't be here. I only do the mundane and everyday things here.'
The chef looked at her with bemusement.
'Only the everyday things?'
Fatu nodded in supplication, thinking that she would be excused.
'Like what?'
'Traditional dishes like rice and bread with traditional drinks like coffee and coca cola.'
'Oh? They said they will make this a regular everyday thing too. They want to eat the fish of the water tank, especially the woman, his wife. He says she's on a pescatarian diet, only eating fish from now on.'
Fatu was shocked.
'Since when?'
The man shrugged his shoulders.
'Today maybe. Or yesterday. Where is the pot? This guy's claws keep moving towards me.'
Glad that she was asked to do something mundane, something she does every day, she opened a bottom cupboard and picked up a pot.
'Put some water in it and light the stove.'
She did as she was asked, looking from the splurging water filling the pot to the claws, the antenna and the pommade.
'What are you doing with that? Are you killing it? Who is killing it?'
'No one,' the portly man answered casually as he watched her put the pot on the electric stove. He did not wait for the water to boil and simply placed the lobster inside. 'Now we wait, wait for it to die by itself.'
He left the kitchen. Fatu looked at the lobster, glad that it would die by itself, and that she wouldn't have to see its neck broken, throat slit, cries smothered by the blood obstructing its gorge. Thankfully, in her view, the impression its death would make would be tempered by the creature 'dying by itself' which she took to be akin to natural death.
The lobster, mostly submerged in water, moved inside the water as its hard, tied up claws clanged against the large pot, an eerie, distinctive, soporific sound that Fatu anticipated breathlessly as one by one the clangs exhorted her to dream.
She blindly reached for the spice bottle that the portly chef had left on the counter while still looking at the lobster waiting for the clangs desperate for something to expel her burgeoning waking dream, a dream of swimming in warm waters, the water of the pot already showing a faint reflection of an imagined sun. She needed something mundane, something regular to shake her back to the reality she had to be reconciled and at peace with.
She opened the spice bottle and shook it on her face, shaking much more on herself than what the chef blew on her as a prank. The portly man was right. She was allergic to pepper, but she wanted to induce sneezing, a more mundane, everyday act she couldn't even imagine as a better shield against a waking dream.
The spices she had shaken on her face soon began to make her sneeze, and she was happy that it instantly dispelled the waking dream because you can't dream when you're sneezing. The sneezing at first was like it was before, a short, rapid fire action, one after the other, seemingly without end.
Then she felt a particular sneeze come up which wouldn't come out. The sneeze was caught in her throat as she went into analeptic shock. What frightened her most was not that she couldn't breathe, but that she couldn't sneeze, and that another waking dream would once again come upon her.
Fatu didn't have to worry about that as very quickly nothing but darkness enveloped her, a darkness like that of her dreamless nights... The portly chef came back after a few minutes and found Fatu on the floor dying quicker than the lobster boiling alive in the pot and rushed back to tell the family.
The boy leaning against the armrest of the sofa looked up as he listened to the portly man tell of the dying house slave, a ghost who escaped limbo through judgement, and whipped out his phone. He opened the app with a finger wave and asked his mother if he could choose the next one, complaining that he never got to choose anything...
