Asia

Ni ho ma, ma mi tsu, na hi ma, lona ne ma. The beauty of the asian language coming from the kitchen grabs my attention, it never has before. I wonder what it would be like to be asian. The man who takes my order is very nice, he always is, always smiling. I wonder if he means it. I order no. 505, the chili ginger chicken soup. My favorite. Actually I’ve never tried anything else. I wonder how it is to be in Asia. I realize that I am in Asia. The place’s name is actually Asia. It’s my favorite. Actually I haven’t really tried all of them, but it’s close, and quiet. I wonder if I’ll turn out like the two other men sitting here in the smoke section. Alone. Alone in Asia. I think not. But I cannot be certain. I rememer to ask for a little bit less of the actual chicken in the soup. An old asian man walks by me while cleaning the tables. He looks straight into my eyes. It hurts. I light myself a cigarette. I wonder if the nice waiter is gay. If he weren’t asian I would be positive he were. I almost light myself another cigarette, I forgot about the other one. I’m incoherent. Haven’t slept for 22 hours. The nice waiter hands be the paper. I accept it but then decide I don’t really want to read it. I don’t care. I decide to write this. That’s right. I memorized all of the above. The soup arrives. I ignore it. The phone rings. I ignore it. It rings again, I answer. It’s my friend Jónas. He’s on his way. See, I told you I wasn’t going to end up alone. I commence eating my soup. I overhear an old man taking advantage of the nice waiter’s niceness. He’s talking about some kind of lottery or horoscope or something. The waiter laughs with courtesy as the old man rambles on. The waiter mentions his wife. Not gay, just really nice. The old asian man walks by again, I avoid his eyes. The nice waiter greets a usual, I presume. He cranks up the stereo playing the most asian sounding asian music I’ve ever heard and says it’s an epic. I’ve heard it here before. It’s not epic. Meditative, not epic. The soup is epic. As usual. My computer’s battery is now running on reserve power. I ignore it. Too lazy to do anything about it. I spill my w