Horse Face

Steam fills the air, drifting from the bowl of soup in front of me. I’m sitting on the table, scanning the chaos around me for a spoon that doesn’t exist. The whole room is a mess. My clothes are on the floor. The sofa is my bed today, the blanket thrown halfway across it. The table is full of magazines, books, random papers, chips, a slice of old pizza, and open cans. The TV is playing Wile E. Coyote, beep beep, every few minutes.

Not finding a spoon doesn’t stop me from wanting the soup. I put both hands around the bowl to pull it closer, to drink straight from it, but it is so heavy I can’t even move it an inch. I stare at my hands. Why am I so weak? I try again, using all my force. Nothing.

Then I notice circles forming on top of the soup. Small ripples. Moving as if something inside is breathing. I lean closer, confused. The circles keep on moving. I look around to see what could be making this happen. The whole world around me shakes. The ceiling stretches upward like the room is suddenly ten times taller. The floor goes down as if the table is floating above a deep empty space.

I blink slowly, trying to understand what is happening.

The soup still moves.

Then suddenly everything snaps back: the ceiling lowers, the floor returns, the bowl stops shaking.

And a voice speaks.

“Hello Sami, here is your spoon.”

I look up.

A tall man stands beside me. Elegant suit. Polished shoes. But his head… his head is a full horse’s head. Long face, big nostrils, dark glassy eyes. On top of his head, a small old-fashioned hat.

He hands me a spoon.

“Hmm… thanks, man,” I say, taking it. I look at it closely. “Wait, this is a fork. And...wait...who the hell are you, dude? How did you even get inside my house?”

He pulls out a chair, sits down calm as the moon, rests his horse head on the table, and asks, “What are you eating here?”

“It’s racist soup,” I answer without thinking, still holding the fork.

He tilts his horse head. “Racist soup? How do you make that?”

“Well,” I say, like it’s obvious, “you buy some racist veggies and some regular veggies. You leave them in the same bag for like two hours. When you come back, the racist veggies would have cursed and mocked the regular veggies so much that the regular veggies become angry and racist back. Then you boil them for an hour, smash everything, and drink it.”

He blinks. “Wow. That sounds like a lot of work. Can I try it?”

He takes out a spoon from his suit pocket, because of course he has his own spoon—and dips it into my bowl, tastes it, then frowns.

“This is just water. There’s no veggies at all.”

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging, “I only bought racist veggies this time. When they couldn’t find regular veggies to insult, they started talking shit about me. Made me feel like an idiot. So I got mad and threw them in the trash.”

“Ahh. Yes. That can be hurtful,” he nods.

“You always carry a spoon with you?” I ask.

“Only when I come to see you, Sami,” he says.

“What do you mean come to see me? I’ve never seen you before in my life. Who the hell ARE you?”

He pulls out a long cigar from his pocket and lights it. Smoke curls out of his horse nostrils. Then he takes a lollipop out of another pocket and starts licking it with slow, dramatic movements.

“Do you ever think,” he starts, “how strange it is that the sunlight entering your window right now actually left the sun eight minutes and twenty seconds ago?”

He takes a timer from his pocket and presses it: 8:20 … counting down.

“So you’re basically being lit by the past,” he continues. “Or that the water you drink has existed forever—drinked, peed, evaporated, rained, again and again. Everything in this room is older than you. The molecules in your body jump from person to person, from chair to bird to ocean, from the Pharaohs to Louis XV to Louis CK. Chaos, but somehow still a picture.”

He smokes. He licks the lollipop. He stares at me.

I stare back.

“Bro,” I finally say, “what in the hell are you talking about? Who the fuck are you? Why are you here?”

“Sami, Sami, Sami,” he sighs, “I have always been here. I have always been watching you, my brother.”

“You’ve been watching me? Even when I...”

“Yes,” he interrupts. “And I have to say, you have a giant heart down there.”

“Well… I’m Arab. They say that about us,” I mumble. “But wait. Why have you been watching me?”

He stands, walks to the window, turns his horse face toward me.

“Maybe you don’t remember right now,” he says softly, “but you always come to us. Whenever you’re sad, or alone, you dive and find us. Searching for something you lost.”

“Me?? I never saw you before.”

“You come to us to find peace,” he repeats, “and I came today to invite you to stay with us forever. We live forever. And there is only happiness.”

I walk closer.

“Describe your world,” I say. “Tell me how to get there.”

He doesn’t hesitate.

“It is a huge land with a lake made of honey. Jasmine trees everywhere. Sunset all day. Only one small cloud in the blue sky, drifting and humming. A king’s chair waiting for you. Servants around. Your family nearby. All of them safe. All of them eternal.”

My throat tightens. I know that place. I have seen it before.

“And how do I go?” I whisper.

He points at the bowl.

“You finish your soup. You take this spoon. You stab your leg. You sign your name on the wall with your blood. Then you stand next to this window. I push you… and you wake up in our world.”

“You’re joking.”

“I don’t joke, Sami. And you don’t have much time. Look.”

The timer shows 30 seconds left.

The TV goes beep-beep at the same time.

Panic climbs up my spine.

“I don’t want to stab myself. I don’t want you to push me.”

“Then I leave,” he says, putting his hat on, extinguishing his lollipop like a cigarette.

“Wait...please...I want to be in the world you described.”

He stops at the door.

“Then get your shit together,” he says. “Stop waiting for life to bring it to you. Either you keep dreaming forever like right now or you turn the dream into a reality. Reality sucks, Sami. Your life sucks dick. But recognizing the difference between a dream and reality is your first step. Dreams make you feel good, but they don’t build anything. Now wake up.”

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

He disappears.

The room is silent.

Then I hear shouting coming from the kitchen.

I follow the noise.

It’s coming from the trash.

I open the trash can.

The racist vegetables are screaming, “FUCK YOU, YOU DIRTY TUNISIAN CAMEL!”

‍

‍