Friday, December 4th, 2020

This sahlab is the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s dense and smooth, somewhere between foamy and creamy, topped with ground peanuts, spices, and other items that I can’t identify. For lunch, I have a sabich, like a falafel but with grilled eggplant and an egg instead of the chickpea balls. I eat it at a chess table in the square. When I’m done, I think of getting coffee. I see that the store with the mysterious sandwiches has sahlab. I get a large one. The worker asks me what I’d like in it. I say OK to everything. It’s easier than trying to figure out what he’s saying. I go back to the chess table with it. A grizzled man walks over to the next table and unpacks a guitar. He sits down, tunes, and plays a sensitive version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” He shouts above it, sounding like a less melodic Captain Beefheart, using random fragments he seems to recall from other rock songs. There are lines from “The Letter,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “Satisfaction,” tied together with a repeating “Mama Mama Mama” that might actually be from the song that the guitar is playing. He finishes the single song, packs up his guitar, and wanders off. Stores around me start to close for the Sabbath. I slowly finish the sahlab, then head back home.