text: The grip on the cold butcher knife in my right hand is firm, calming against my fiery skin. I'm standing under the fluorescent lights looking towards the double doors, taking deep breaths, counting down the seconds in my head and straining my ears, waiting for the telltale noise of steps approaching to jump into action. It's almost time, I can feel the buzz of the anticipation through my body, muscles tensing and senses sharpening. It doesn't matter how many times I went through the same routine already, the feeling doesn't get old; if anything, it gets better. It's dark outside, the streets filled to the brim with people celebrating the beginning of the longest weekend of Summer. Music, horns, laughs, conversations...everything overlapping, the pulse of an unrelent civilization kept away by some inches of concrete walls only. I close my eyes and take a long deep breath, reveling in the brief calm that surrounds me. The others in the room stand absolutely still behind me, well trained in the respect of this daily ritual but unaware of the meaning of this specific evening. I exhale slowly during the last seconds of the countdown and allow myself to feel the light weight and pressure contained into my trouser's left pocket; a lucky charm of sorts, the most cherished object to me and the only way to keep the chaos restrained, because someone must be able to manage chaos at their whim and for still unknown reasons, I got the gig. Nepotism? Maybe. 3, 2, 1... Showtime! The double doors open and suddenly there's no more room for stilness or silence. Everybody knows how to keep their pace in the dance that just started and there's no time for hesitation. Orders are placed, the clanking of pots and pans mixes with the hissing of hot oil and the knifes against cutting boards mark the rhythm of an improvised melody. Music to my ears, nothing as the dull background music that disturbs the ambience each time the doors are opened to bring in a new order. The place isn't big, just a dozen tables situated in a cozy dining hall, warm lighting and fresh flowers giving a romantic vibe not much in my dècor line, honestly. I very much rather a touch a little dramatic, personally, but hey, I'm not the owner, even if that could be arranged in a blink. Literally. Being not expensive but neither cheap, the clientele is rather eclectic; families celebrating birthdays or graduations, young lovers being engaged, friends catching up after long separations, middle aged couples looking for a spark on their boring settled lives, with or without their relative ones... A colorful palette in which it shouldn't be hard to choose the one who will have the honor to be the recipient of a very special treat tonight, with the best wishes from the Chef itself. A delightful tradition that I've kept alive all around the world without fail for so long I don't have the actual ability to remember when it started, and a very important one. I like to give my customers a personal attention touch, making them feel valued and seen even for just one brief evening before getting back to their usually sad and boring lives. I feel better knowing that I make a difference; a small one, yes, but what are the oceans but small water drops together? And if sometimes the one drop makes the ocean roar, it makes things more interesting, right? The entrees are being delivered and I don't miss the chance to take a gander at the dining hall every time the doors open, quickly enough to go unnoticed but I don't need more to take notice of the people seated at the room. There's three young women with bright eyes in what looks like an emotional last dinner before going their separate ways on the beginning of their adult lives. On the corner near the bathrooms a pretty little girl is enjoying the company of her grandparents after a day on the beach; I can smell the salt in her hair from here and her sunkissed cheecks are rosy from smiling so much. I like how they'd choose the most practical table for the sake of the child, ignoring the annoying passing of people from and towards the toilets. Other table is occupied by two men in an obvious first date. They are nervous around each other but there's an undeniable attraction and lots of eye contact. I wonder if not for the little girl seated near the door, they would be snogging on the bathroom before desserts... A couple in their thirties have taken the central table in an unfortunate attempt from him to show her off. Their clothes are expensive but her jewelry is fake, same as her allegedly luxury branded purse, and under her carefully applied make up there's a faint purple shadow on her right cheek. She's beautiful and painfully silent in contrast of his obnoxious bravado and her eyes don't look away from her plate, even as she laughs mirthlessly at his jokes. Before starting the main courses everyone at the dining hall has been scrutinized and catalogued. Now I just need to make a choice based on what I've learned about them not only by their behavior but also their stance, the glint of their eyes, the miriad of subtle details that go unnoticed for the untrained eye but not for me. I've been doing this long enough to recognize the whiff of disguise and the hum of blood running too fast under the skin. It's not an easy task, in fact I would dare to say it is the hardest ever, being the one who makes the choice, but there's no one else. It's lonely too, the need to move around the world in an endless search, never stopping twice in the same place, makes my existence impossible for friendship, love or any kind of long lasting company but I can't complain anyway. Mine is a one day a year job and I'm free to do as I please until next cycle, so I learn and dance and paint and sing and start wars and end them and leave my handprint in fresh cement and write my thoughts in anonymous poems and create pandemics and their remedies and cry and scream and laugh while I roam this world since the beginning of the times, gathering information on these fascinating creatures, studying their flaws and whims, dissecting them as a species in my mind since I can't do it as individuals in a physical way. That's not my job and anyway, they manage to do it themselves without any help. So I slip my left hand in my pocket and grab the small pebble turning it between my fingers, feeling its smooth surface polished by eons of winds and rains, and drop it in a dish, dissolving itself immediately. The choice is made. The people seated at the tables on the dining hall are completely unaware of the fact that one of them in a matter of days will change humankind's trajectory forever, be it for the better or the worse. I hope my choice was the right one today, I really, really hope it because sometimes, not very often fortunately, the chosen one takes a different path than whichever I put in front of them with catastrophic consequences (sorry for the Black Plague, by the way). I'll never understand free will; I would never, ever gave it to them. But when I showed my disagreement to the idea the only thing I got was a kick in the butt and a one way ticket to much warmer realms so I guess now I just can sit, watch and hope for the best. See you next year!