Check, please!

Squeezing in one last story before the year’s over | Fiction | Fresh Soup

Illustration by Beenee Sarid

We’ll start with a car crash. Dying father, hysterical daughter. The father stays calm, he knows his death is near. He tells the daughter, “Forget about ambulances and all that. Look at me. I was a lousy dad and I’m sorry about it, OK? I would go into details but it’s almost over. I love you.” And then he dies. The daughter hugs him and bursts into tears. A few seconds later she chokes them down. She takes a deep breath and pulls off her VR headset. And now she’s sitting on the toilet in her bathroom at home, trying not to cry.

Next, a restaurant in the real world. Father and daughter are at their weekly lunch date. He tells her she looks like a woman who’s given birth a couple of times. That hurts, especially since she’s infertile. She shuts her eyes and remembers the simulation, the car crash, her dying father looking at her tearfully. She opens her eyes and says to herself, “Nevertheless….” Then, out loud, “I love you.” They don’t order coffee or dessert. The last thing a woman who looks like she’s squeezed out two babies needs is another crème brûlée.

We continue out at sea, it’s stormy. She fights off huge waves. She’s not alone. Next to her in the water are her father—and something else, which is now moving swiftly toward them. It’s a shark. “Get away!” her father roars, “Get away, now! I’ll hold it back!” Then a whirlpool of blood, and then she’s on the toilet again, distraught, and then we’re back at the restaurant. The father slurps an oyster and says, “You look so sad. When was the last time you slept with a guy? Or a girl? Anyone?” She shuts her eyes and sees the shark devouring him. Then it swims toward her. It’s very close now. Its face looks a lot like the father’s. It’s terrifying.

We end in a burning house. The father and daughter try to run out the door but they can’t get past the flames. They turn back and rush to the bathroom: the one where the daughter was using the VR headset. The doorway collapses and the father is trapped under debris. He looks at the daughter and tries to say something but she cuts him off. “Shut up!” she yells. “You hear me? Shut up! I don’t care what you have to say.” He keeps trying to talk but she won’t let him, just screams and curses at him horribly while he takes his final breaths, and then she cries and takes the headset off. She’s still in the same spot, in her bathroom, but her father is not there and the house is no longer on fire.

Now the epilogue: we’re at the restaurant again. The father sits at a table, alone. He checks the time and tries, for the last time, to call his daughter. She still doesn’t answer. He looks up from his phone and signals to the waiter: Check, please.

Translated by Jessica Cohen