Interlude by Raietta artwork by Marcia Elena for aris   They eat in a Chinese restaurant, a small one, with red and gold walls and fine rice paper tapestries on the walls and green potted plants. Paper dragons dangle from the ceiling, and they are seated at a table with paper place mats listing the Chinese zodiac. “Are you the monkey, or the dragon?” Mulder asks, and Krycek replies, “Year of the Rat, don’t you know,” and Mulder replies, “How apropos,” and Krycek can only smile. Tea is served, in a small pot, into small white china cups with red delicate scenes of bridges and trees painted on them. The steam rises and clouds the table, and Krycek thinks he is breathing in dragon smoke. The smell of the tea is rich and delicate, like the drawings in red on the white china, lemony and hot. Mulder regards his menu seriously. Chinese food ordering has been elevated to a high art form, with him. He is a master at it. Krycek watches him at work, appreciatively. “The Tiger Lotus dish with the water chestnuts looks good,” he says speculatively, hazel eyes narrowed in thought. He glances at Krycek. “What do you think? Tiger? Or maybe the duck?” Krycek doesn’t bother looking at his own menu. He is too busy looking at Mulder. “Sweet and sour pork, for me.” “Ugh,” Mulder replies, deeply disappointed. He sips at his tea. “That’s so generic. At least *attempt* to appreciate good Chinese food.” “Whatever, Mulder. Just because you’re a Chinese food snob doesn’t mean the rest of the human race is.” Overhead, an ad for a Chinese beer, 3-D, in the shape of a bottle, twists in the quiet air currents. Around them, other people eat and talk quietly, clinking silverware against plates, spooning up soup, tapping chopsticks, murmuring. Mulder and he are islanded at their own little table, the soft dim lights of the restaurant isolating them, calming the air. Across the room, a phoenix flits across a screen made of bamboo. A waitress, smiling, pretty and small with short black hair, descends upon them before Mulder can come up with a sufficiently quelling retort, and asks if they are ready to order. Mulder decides on the duck, and Krycek orders sweet and sour pork, and Mulder ‘hmph!’s. “And the sizzling rice soup,” Krycek adds, and Mulder is appeased, somewhat. The waitress nods and bobs, and disappears on them, vanishing like smoke after refilling the tea pot, and Mulder raises an eyebrow at Krycek and leans back in his seat. “What, not shark fin soup?” “Give it a rest, Mulder.” And Mulder, who never gives anything a rest, gives it a rest. How marvelous he is, Krycek thinks, sitting across from the tall lovely man with hazel eyes and a big nose. How extraordinary. The red and gold walls shimmer, seem to dance. Outside, it is dark, and cold. Everything inside is suddenly in such sharp relief; the crease of the table cloth, the gilded round doorways, the lone flower in its beer bottle vase on the table, the long calm fingers of Mulder’s hands, the dragons made of crinkled paper dangling and turning from the ceiling. It is at times like this that Krycek almost believes in God. And Mulder, his miracle. He is saying something, Mulder, and Krycek listens to the sound of his voice, the pleasant monotone, its subtleties, the roughness. Watches the gestures of those long-fingered hands, the tilt of the head, the rich pauses, the flash of his throat as he breathes. There are gods here, listening to Mulder talk, Krycek suddenly realizes. They cluster around their table and breathe silently, drifting like gauze in the air. Ancestors, guardians, demons, magical things. They crowd the table, and outside it is cold and wintry, but in here, in this closed-off genie’s bottle, it is warm. A large tureen of soup is placed on the table, small bowls of white with green edges are set down, a bone ladle is handed over. The waitress smiles and departs, and soup is served, sizzling. Still Mulder talks, and Krycek watches the lips make sounds and syllables and vowels go into the air, which is crowding. The occasional glimpse of teeth. The flash and dip of lashes against skin. The gods breathe, crowded close together, around them. Outside, it is cold, but in this warm still place full of happy people it is warm. If this is only a dream, Krycek will kill someone. But it’s not, it’s not. It’s real. The walls gleam red and gold. Dragons roll by with their clouds and long whiskers. Old catfish. Shark-fin soup. Mulder speaks. Steam rises from the tureen, the teapot, the two small white and red cups. Dishes arrive, bringing still more steam, hot, rainbow-colored, duck and pork and rice and water chestnuts and snow peas. Chopsticks. “I still don’t know how to use chopsticks right,” Mulder complains, and Krycek replies, reaching out across the table, “Here, I know how, let me show you.” And Mulder lets him. Steam from tea in delicate white cups with red scenes painted on them. Mulder is taught the art of chopstick handling. He laughs. He laughs. And Krycek wants only for this one moment to last forever, this rare time where there are no dark shadows, where the gods are present, this rare time. White rice on a silver platter. Mulder laughs, and the small sweet waitress refills water glasses and smiles, and dragons roll by on clouds of steam and here the prayer and here the brief moment where the sublime is present in this small Chinese restaurant with red and gold walls and green plants in pots and here the wooden chopsticks and here hands passing dishes back and forth and here words like silver birds and here laughter and here the eyes that are hazel and the soft dark hair and here a silk thread tapestry and bamboo screens and here the handing of bowls and here the dim soft lights a time out of time a rare thing so rare and here the thing that makes life bearable, makes life worth it, this one tiny moment that will be gone before the night is out and will not return, here the gods and here it all is, all of it, right here, and Here is Mulder laughing, scooping up rice and duck. And laughing. And although it is cold outside, it is warm in here, and here the moment stretches itself into a small infinity, forever, forever, and all that has ever been lost is here, right here, for the briefest moment, and it is enough, laughing.   The End NOTES: The phrase “flash of his throat as he breathes” taken from Peter S. Beagle’s novel, The Last Unicorn. Since by now the X-Files show is over and Krycek’s really dead, let’s pretend this is a sort of afterlife/heaven scenario, shall we? An interlude, if you will. A moment out of time.