My Imaginary Life 17
Alan: What do you mean become Azmi? Like Faceoff?
Shah: Don’t be ridiculous. That was just a movie. What I meant was that I’ll have to pose as Azmi, without showing my face. We have to make her think Azmi is trying to contact her, when it will actually be us… well, me.
Alan: Ok, ok. I get what you mean. But we have so little information about Azmi, how are we gonna convince her that it’s really him? What if they have some kind of secret signal or phrase or word or number that they will use if they were to communicate?
Shah: I don’t know. We’ll just have to hope they don’t.
Alan: It’s awfully risky. We could very well scare Jo out of the country and then we’d lose the trail completely again.
Shah: I know! There isn’t any other way. We’ll start small. Do something very subtle and see if she bites.
Alan: Subtle?
Shah: Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.
Later that evening, Jo knocks on Shah’s door. Shah answers fairly quickly and sees a very cheerful Jo bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. She’s holding a casserole covered with some aluminium foil.
Jo: Hey neighbour! I hope you read my note.
Shah: Yeah, I did. Come on in.
Jo steps in and walks straight to the kitchen. Shah closes the door behind him and follows.
Shah: That smells pretty good.
Jo: It does? That’s quite a compliment coming from a chef.
Shah: Well it’s true.
Jo sets the casserole down on the counter and removes the foil to reveal her dish.
Jo: Ta-da! What do you think?
Shah leans in to have a closer look.
Shah: Um… looks great. Er… what is it?
Jo: Can’t you tell? It’s lasagna! Of course it probably looks different from those you chefs make.
Shah: Right. It does look different.
The lasagna was almost completely red, and looked as if it was on fire. It was a fusion of chilli peppers and hot sauce.
Jo had gotten some dishes out and begins cutting her lasagna and puts a piece on each plate. She hands a fork and spoon to Shah and sits down across from him and watches him eagerly, elbows on table, her head resting on her hands. Shah rather warily takes a spoonful of the lasagna and brings it up to his mouth slowly. The smell of the peppers enter his nose and go straight to his throat. He tries his best not to cough.
Shah puts the spoon in his mouth and chews once. Immediately his mouth is on fire. Tears start welling up in his eyes and his nose begins to run. Not being able to stand it anymore, Shah immediately runs to the kitchen sink and spits everything out. He franticly searches his fridge and grabs a carton on milk and practically pours it down his throat. There’s milk overflowing from the sides of his mouth and streaming down onto his shirt.
Jo is standing a few feet away from Shah looking at him a little confused and a little angry. Shah looks at her from the corner of his eyes, still drinking straight from the milk carton. He finishes the carton, wipes his mouth with his sleeve and faces Jo. She doesn’t say anything for a while and just looks at him.
Shah: Are you trying to kill me?
Jo: What? No! What’s wrong?
Shah: What do you mean what’s wrong? The lasagna’s wrong!
Jo: You said it smelled great!
Shah: I lied. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. How could anyone eat that stuff?
Jo: I eat that all the time!
Shah: I’d like to see that.
Jo grabs a spoon and takes a spoonful of lasagna straight from the casserole and happily eats it with no fuss or drama. Shah stares at her, mouth agape.
Shah: What are you?
——————-
(Ed: Ok, this was a rather boring chapter. But I’m still trying to figure out the rest of the story so this is all I came up with in the mean time. Hopefully it gets better.)
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