The cauchemars

The demands of life and the anxieties catch up with us when we rest. There at the most innocent, slipping into unconsciousness we give ourselves to our other side, there can’t be a distraction or a willful ignorance. It takes us somewhere whether we want to go there or not.

In these nightmares nothing is really going wrong for a nightmare but when i wake and the lingering stays with me. Last night I had been off and came to have a drink at the restaurant that doesn’t exist. I walked in at the same time as another chef who i knew from reading about but had never met. The kitchen was about to close and the waiter said ‘sorry we’re closed’ I whispered in his ear that I would cook and to give the chef a drink. He thanked me, explained that his restaurant had closed early and he had been trying to come to eat before but our opening hours were the same. He left early to try our food.

Upstairs in the kitchen they had already cleaned down, already turned off the grill, I had chosen to cook him sweetbread skewers. The grill takes time to heat up. I looked through the fridge to choose a garnish, there was an alioli with pickled lemon mixed in. There was a box of washed wild rocket. My hand over the grill didn’t detect enough heat. The flame was on. Not enough heat. The clock said it had been already twenty minutes. I called up the manager and looked down at the chef who had finished his glass of wine and was waiting for another. I made a gesture for pouring wine and asked him to come upstairs.

I stood next to the grill with my hands over it waiting for it get hot. The manager came up, thirty minutes had passed. I asked him had anyone mentioned anything wrong with the grill. ‘Yes,’ he said. The heat was rising in me, the hot flush, the numbing anger. I looked down at the empty restaurant and the chef on his own. It was not going to happen, he was not going to get fed. In my embarressment I kept the manger upstairs with me while unleashing vitriol of the whole team. I couldnt face to go to the chef and tell him what had happened so from the kitchen we watched him call out, wait awhile and call out again. After an hour on the clock had passed he left. The dread of what would be said about our restaurant whirled around the thoughts in my head while I dreamt knowing soon I would wake.

The nightmares are slow torture, its hard to get into them after waking. Sometimes I make a note. Its often the same situation in a different location. Its often a dread of not being able to feed.