March 5 '08

I am in Denver, at an authentic Chinese restaurant. There are 7-9 people in our group, my father and some family, some of his friends, and a couple younger children. For some reason I have two cell phones, and am standing in the entrance talking on one and then the other. The host didn't want to set us if we weren't all together, and was getting impatient with me for being out front. I, annoyed, go inside and get seated with the group, and then once we were at the table and all sat, I excused myself to go finish my business. Although I was permitted it was with done so with disdain. When I was finally returned, I snottily explained that it was rude to talk on the phone at the table. So the meal begins and is nothing to speak of, until suddenly the entire restaurant is full of Nigerian rebel fighters, and they are causing chaos everywhere. Though people are scared and being thrown around, the men are not murderous, and I myself am fighting many of them off who are approaching from under the table. In the end all the customers and employees have fled and just about everything has been trashed. I am there alone, wandering through the restaurant when I happen upon a small library of race relations and how to bridge cultural divides, all very proactive stuff, and I am intrigues and have an entirely different reaction to the owner. I hear a noise in the main dining room, I go and check it out. The owner has returned, worse for the wear emotional and carrying two different kinds of pistols. He sees me and points one of the guns at me, though shakily, and starts to yell at me between sobs, about how it was all my fault and then about how he can't stay open if they keep doing that and then about how he tries to close by 'their' time to stay out of their way. By now he his sitting on a dubious chair, overwhelmed by the situation. I approach him, but I don't know what to say, I can feel his pain, and hear his tragedy, but I have no words that will heal this and then the alarm goes off.