The Longest Queue

This a story I heard from a friend who heard it from an Iraqi engineer who fled away to Ireland

from bomb clouds and anthrax in the rain and queues for food. He rings home once a month  to speak to his dying mother

and to hear news of his family and neighbours.

That night he told the story he had asked after a friend of his,

a doctor with two beautiful daughters and a young boy.

His mother went silent, darkly silent, fifty pence gobbling silent.

A couple of months ago this doctor lost his job and was left to

live on government rations,

not a lot to go on by all accounts and anyway he owed some money to a smuggler for getting

his mother over the border to Jordan. Faced with starvation he improvised and sent his two beautiful daughters one eighteen, the other fifteen

out to sell their bodies,

and his ten year old son to shine shoes and beg. Financially it worked out,

they’d even set some money aside. But the man was broken  hearted,

not to speak of how his children must have felt.

So the man decides to cook a chicken for his family. He goes to queue in the marketplace.

It’s a short queue since chickens cost six weeks average wages.

Then the slightly longer line for vegetables and the four hours waiting for bread.

Maybe he thinks to himself

that the only thing longer than this bread queue is the waiting list at the coffin-makers.

Next day is some kind of religious feast

so he tells his kids to be at the dinner table at seven. He’s got a surprise for them.

While preparing the chicken

he searches through his leftover medicines for a suitable poison

to inject into the breast and leg meat.  The daughters and the son arrive in time and they sit around the table chatting,

faking good humour for the good of their father, like they always do.

The doctor divides the meat among them, a breast and leg for himself,

a breast for the eldest daughter, a leg for the younger,

a leg and two wings for the son.

He gestures to his son to share out the vegetables. They say their prayers quickly, mouths watering.

Since none of them has eaten meat for months and months they take

their time, chewing each mouthful with the relish reserved for a luxury, rolling it round with their  tongue,

squeezing the taste out with their teeth. The boy asks for more and gets it.

They do not talk while they are eating.  They concentrate on the taste and the smell. The doctor is a subtle and a skillful cook, his children notice nothing unusual,

he gives nothing away with sighs or tears. They do not even notice themselves dying. In a few minutes they are all dead.

They have joined the longest queue of all.

I hope this isn’t a true story but I’d say it probably is.