-Exodus 34
Asher moved the cubes of chicken around with his plastic fork, watched them swim in the fatty gravy and over-cooked peas. In such a gelatinous mush, everything just blended into a single mass.
He persisted nonetheless, scooping plastic forkfuls into his mouth and swallowing with as little thought as possible. Even the slice of chocolate cake didn’t look exactly appetising, and Asher didn’t think he could handle the ‘salad’ at all - but it was better than not eating, so Asher tried not to complain.
Of course, Asher hadn’t really wanted kosher meals at all - it was Rahko that had insisted as he charmed the woman at the airline’s help desk. Not that it was a kind of charm Asher had ever seen before - Rahko had approached the woman, who looked to be hitting her mid-fifties, and smiled, asked her how she was. Within minutes the woman was sobbing out her problems, her son who was into drugs, her fear of divorce, and so on. Twenty minutes later, Asher and Rahko held two tickets to Tel-Aviv (with kosher meals). In fact, since they had begun this journey together last night, Asher hadn’t seen Rahko pay for anything. The taxi driver had fallen over himself to give them a free ride to the airport, the barista in JFK had hugged Rahko, kissed him on both cheeks, and immediately sorted out two cups of coffee and a fruit smoothie. No wonder Rahko had only smiled when Asher had asked him where they would get the money to fly to Israel.
