Dinner with God

Chapter 2

May 12th 2009

The sudden sound of someone knocking on the door, interrupted John’s monologue. ‘Who could that be at this hour?’ he wondered. It was 6 PM, but for someone who consistently goes to bed at eight, that was practically midnight.

A third knock on the door politely echoed across the cold, dark house.

‘One moment,’ John said, as he carefully tried to maneuver his way to the front door. Who could it be? Did something happen? An accident maybe?

He carefully unlocked the door and tried to look through the spy hole to see who was at the other end. However, his view was blocked, so John decided to open the door just enough to see who it was that honored him and Mary with a visit. He peeped through the cap, and saw a young man looking him straight in the eye.

‘Good evening sir,’ the man said.

John opened the door somewhat further. The stranger was neatly dressed, black pants and a perfectly ironed black shirt with white buttons. John’s couldn’t help but notice his hair, so perfectly groomed that it seemed to come straight from a fifties movie. Then, he noticed why he hadn’t been able to see anything through the spy hole. The man blocked the view with his hand.

‘What do you think you’re doing, young man?’ John barked at him, gesturing at his hand.

‘You tried to look into the future.’ The voice of the stranger sounded as smooth as his appearance. ‘You’re not supposed to.’

John moved the door, indicating that he was about to shut it.

‘Don’t you like that feeling of being surprised? That feeling when the unexpected happens?’ the man continued.

John frowned. ‘You have no idea, son,’ he grunted. ‘Please just tell me what you’re doing here, I was just about to have dinner.’

‘Well isn’t that a coincidence,’ the man said. ‘I am God and I’m here to have dinner with you.’ He held up a Chinese takeaway bag as he said it with a smile.

‘Excuse me?’ John made a coughing sound. ‘You’re what?’

‘I am God, but you can call me Tucker.’

John didn’t even know how to respond to that. The silence lasted so long that it became unpleasant. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be God?’ he eventually managed to say.

‘Aren’t you a little old to be that prejudiced?’ Tucker deflected.

Blindsided by his bluntness, John replied: ‘I’m not prejudiced, I’m simply not crazy enough to believe you.’

‘Is there any difference?’ The corners of Tucker’s mouth curled up. ‘Oh well. I believe in you, that is enough for now.’

John shook his head. ‘I’m going back inside, dinner’s getting cold.’

‘You old liar.’ Tucker said as he patted him on the shoulder. ‘Bread doesn’t get cold and milk already is.’

John felt caught. But how did this man know what he had in his fridge?

‘Well, are you going to let me in?’ The intruder held up the food again, and winked at John. Actually, John wanted to slam the door in his face, but his curiosity was stronger than his common sense. He looked at the Tucker guy from head to toe. Something about this man wasn’t right, but John was unable to determine exactly what. Was it because his left eye was green and his right one blue? Or maybe because of his neat clothes and his dentist smile?

John wasn’t sure what to think of this. Could this man be a psychopath who was here to kill him? Theoretically possible, but crazy psycho killers usually wave around knives or guns, not Chinese food. And also, there was something charming about Tucker, albeit in an extremely annoying way. It didn’t seem like he wanted anything from John. On the contrary, he had brought him food.

‘Ha, I knew it,’ Tucker said as he placed his hand on John’s shoulder and showed himself in. ‘You old softie!’

Overwhelmed, John allowed the uninvited visitor to proceed.

Tucker looked around in the cold, dark house. ‘I would like to say that I love the place John, but it would help if I could actually see it.’ He gave him another one of those annoying winks. ‘Is it ok with you if I make some more light?’

Before John was even able to answer, Tucker had already flicked on the switch. He whistled as if he walked past the most beautiful girl in the world. ‘Swell!’ he almost yelled. ‘So authentic, so real!’

He walked past the bookshelf and inspected all the spines. None of the books were John’s, it had always been Mary who was the bookworm. It wasn’t that John hated reading, he was simply not able to focus long enough and he would always fall asleep after several pages. Mary on the other hand, could hopelessly lose herself in a book. She would often turn the last page on the same day as the first.

Tucker walked to the other side of the room, towards the small television set that hadn’t been turned on in years, and the coffee table that had been gathering dust. Suddenly he stopped; closed his eyes and didn’t move for about ten seconds, as if he wanted to absorb the living room and everything in it.

‘Ok….dinner!’ he said, when he opened his eyes again. ‘I hope you’re hungry, because I brought a lot.’

‘Well, you do have a lot of mouths to feed,’ John remarked dryly.

Tucker raised his left eyebrow. ‘Was that a joke? Did you just make a joke, John McKenzie?’ He grabbed John by the shoulders and shuffled him a little. ‘That is fantastic! I didn’t realized that you still had it in you, man!’

John instantly regretted his Joke. How did this man know his name, and why did he keep touching him? The answer almost immediately followed: of course, the name plate next to the door. John shivered at the thought that he had believed, even for one second, that this idiot was more than a strange, possibly even dangerous man.

‘Ah, I see that you were expecting me,’ Tucker interrupted his thoughts, as he pulled back the chair across John’s chair.

‘No!’ John yelled, in a voice that had more pain in it than anger. He clumsily tried to grab the chair from Tucker’s hands.

Startled, Tucker let go.

John immediately felt embarrassed about his reaction. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, pointing at the empty chair. But that’s Mary’s seat.’