Ceylan and I had moved right by Chinatown, a true blessing for stay-at-home people like us. We developed the habit of eating at the Moose Garden on Saturday evenings. This fundamentally Asian restaurant had made an attempt to sound local, but I thought that the two words did not combine that well.
It was the closest option. Across the boulevard, we would have officially been inside Chinatown, but we were by all means satisfied, and did not feel the need to vary. The staff knew us, and, since we always had a soup as starters, they arranged bowls and spoons on our table before we even ordered. At the end of the meal, we received a fortune cookie. It disclosed a thought, After winter comes spring, or a prediction, A surprise is waiting for you at home, in red letters.
In the street parallel to our eatery's, I had once noticed a sign for another Chinese restaurant, located on the second floor of a building. The back alley, deserted, hosted mainly warehouses. I suggested to Ceylan we give it a try when the Moose Garden team took their annual vacation.
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| I had once noticed a sign for another Chinese restaurant. |
A menu brightened up the hall, at the bottom of a flight of stairs. We glanced at it, then walked up the stairs. Ceylan opened the door. It looked more like a family's dining room than a restaurant. Six or seven tables covered with oilcloth furnished a quirky, sparsely decorated space. The windows, on the street side, were too high to look through. Two Asian couples occupied the center table. Tiny children played next to them, their cheeks red with agitation.
A young woman with a luminous smile placed us underneath the windows. At the end of a delicious meal, our hostess brought the bill as well as the amusing treats. I was enjoying mine when my partner blurted out:
“The food is as tasty as at the other place, but I wouldn't say the sayings are more relevant!”
He handed me his note, which said: You love your job enormously. However, for a few months now, Ceylan's work conditions had degenerated to the point that he was searching for something else. As for me, I had: You receive a new piece of clothing. At the same moment, the couple next to us jumped for joy. They ordered a nightcap and raised a toast. Back at home, I slid the notes inside the buffet drawer. There, we kept all sorts of souvenirs, movie tickets, pictures, sweet notes to glue in our love book.
The week was a busy one. Ceylan got an interview on Tuesday and received a positive answer the following Friday. Delighted, he took me to the Moose Garden, which had reopened. We made full use of the menu, ordering more dishes than usual.
Two weeks later, I was treating myself to a pajama evening at home. Diana Krall's voice kept me company. Ceylan was at his accordion lesson. Between two reading sessions, I began updating our love book. I was holding a handful of fortune cookie slips when it hit me. A colleague had just given me a dress found in her closet, never worn. You receive a new piece of clothing. As to Ceylan, now, yes, he pretty much adored his job. A feeling of confusion passed through me. I discussed it with my beloved upon his arrival. Devoured by curiosity, we returned to the modest eatery the following day.
We found out that from Someone in your family congratulates you to You will suffer from a slight flu, including You run into your favorite actress, all the predictions came true within fifteen days. What should we do? Tell the story to our friends? Call the media? We could already imagine the little dining room on the news, famous worldwide, emptied of its magic. Finally, we decided to keep the secret.
One night, euphoria turned into nightmare. My fortune said You and your partner die together, tragically but painlessly. Ceylan's message was identical. Should we call the police? Consult a paranormal specialist? Was this how we would live the last two weeks of our lives, in fear and uncertainty?
We borrowed money from the bank and organized a spectacular gathering. Ceylan paid for the party venue and the hotel rooms to accommodate our families and friends. I bought the plane tickets for my relatives residing in Italy. We had purchased rings and told everyone that we had gotten married on a whim. Afterwards, we announced that we were going on a honeymoon for a few weeks, instead of which, we stayed at home with no telephone and no Internet, loving each other by day and watching movies by night. On the living room table, we left a document explaining the whole thing. This stage, extremely intense, flew by extremely fast.
From now on, we expected death any moment. Every minute, every second was more precious than the previous one. We lived huddled together, mixing kisses with tears, whispering loving words.
Death was not coming.
Soon our friends would try to contact us, expecting us to be back from our trip. Our employers would run out of patience—we had said that a person close to us was about to die, which was not false. Days went by.
After four weeks, we left our nest, holding hands, admiring the sun flooding the blue sky as an undreamed promise of life. We walked to the place where it had all begun. It was closed in the early morning. We knocked and the young woman opened the door.
“Me so happy see you! Am sorry, sorry,” she said.
“Ah, so you know about it?”
“Yes! We make fortune cookies here, in house basement. Cookies have power, because here, before, dead people. Text inscribes itself.”
“You don't pick the text?”
“That's it. Machine downstairs, write on its own. Funny, hehe!”
Yes, well, mildly funny as far as we were concerned.
“One month ago, client gives address on Internet to make famous miracle cookies. Spirit wants to scare and tell everyone die. You came before we understand. Sorry!”
But we were not sorry. Overjoyed, we kissed the little lady and savored that wonderful day, the one of our coming back to life. We kept going to Asian restaurants, but without opening the cookies.
Apologies for giving the lady a broken English!
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