He was making falafel for dinner. He doesn’t get much of a chance to cook these days, what with me being at home all the time and he being at work. He likes to cook, a lot.
He’s been thinking all day:
What will I cook? It’s Saturday! What will I cook?
He settled on a box of falafel mix that we’ve had in the cupboard for months. He also fried up some mushrooms and some flank steak and threw in some garlic and onions. It’s a Falafel Fajita kind of thing. Lebanese Tex Mex.
About 10 minutes after he started cooking, I heard, “Whaaa!”
I said, from the next room, “You okay?”
“Whaaa JEsus!”
I said, “So, you okay?” Waited.
“Holy CRAP!”
Imagining a flying insect on his knee or a spatter of oil in the eye, I said, “You gonna live?”
Then I felt a tickle at the back of my throat. My nose began to run. My eyes felt as though sand and cayenne pepper had secretly leapt into a bottle of Visine, just to be mean. I coughed. I never cough.
“These are fucking habaneros for sure!” he shouted. I ran to the kitchen. He was bent double at the sink, clutching at the cool steel of the faucet with both hands, his face beneath the stream of water.
I felt cold. The window was open in the kitchen, but it was more than that. He had found the last hot pepper in the fridge and had added it to his vegetables in the frying pan. I hadn’t thought to warn him.
“Did you use the whole thing?” I said anxiously, my hand hovering over his shoulder. I didn’t want to touch him.
“Hell no! I used half!” He coughed, a rattling sound, and looked at me, his face pale and wet, his eyes watering.
I poured myself a cold glass of water from the jug in the fridge. When I turned back toward the stove, I was overcome by a gust of warm, peppery air. I coughed desperately, dryly.
The catt scratched at the screen door, then turned to plead with me to let him out. His panicked face broke my heart.
“We’ll have to leave here and never come back,” I declared, “We can take the steak and the wraps with us. And the cheese.”
“But my falafel!” he cried. Water spattered from his lips. I felt drops sizzle on my burning flesh.
“No. We can stop for falafel. I’m sorry.”
We cried as we packaged the catt in his speciality carrier and took the cheese and the pickles from the fridge. As we ran down the back alley, I turned and saw flames exploding from the still-open kitchen window. They were orange and took the shape of laughing Mexicans.
“It’s for the best,” he said and took my hand. He had recovered and now I could break down. “It’s for the best,” he repeated and we ran till we could breathe again.