"Mr Dali, do you use a dictaphone ? No, I usually use a lobster."

Story By Neville Cole

Dinner arrives not a minute too soon. Most of us have been drinking for more than two hours already and we are all quite besotted. Meals at the Oasis are served family style so introductions are quite naturally in order. Everyone seems most interested in learning more about the bearded stranger taking his seat at the table. All he will offer up is that he no longer uses a name but that he will always answer to “friend”. Most of the group appears quite willing to accept this rather peculiar comment and leave him to his anonymity; John, of course, is not one of them. Leaping to his feet he is clearly ready to pepper “friend” with further questions but his attack is cut short by a more pressing need: food.

The meal starts all out quite remarkably with an appetizer of Lobster Turkana (actually Nile Perch in a white crème sauce but Michel, after one bite, spits his on the floor later explaining he is allergic to crustaceans and was momentarily convinced it really was lobster). Perhaps feeling a need to draw attention away from the retching Michel and more importantly to himself, John seizes that exact moment to raise himself up to his full, gangly height and call the entire table to attention.

“I’d like to make a toast…” he says while keeping quite remarkable balance for one so tall and tipsy. “To Wolfgang… to Lake Turkana… to beautiful African skies and even more beautiful women!” Now, that was something the whole group could agree on, and glasses around the table were duly raised.

I can’t help but think that we look quite a sight this night. The bearded stranger sitting at the center of our long table and the rest of us spread out to either side disciple-like with John next to me at the far end.  I can already tell that John is more than primed to play the part of Judas. Of course, unlike The Last Supper, our two dozen or so includes four strikingly gorgeous girls. The girls don’t say much and they eat even less. In fact, until three bowls of salad are set down before us, not one them has a single bite.

I find myself transfixed by the tall blond next to me who is diligently carving her tomato into impossibly thin slices and savoring each bite with almost orgasmic delight.

“You really like that tomato, don’t you” I ask finally.

“Mmm, yes” she answers with a distinct Russian burr. “I have not ever tasted such a flavor.”

“They are very good, aren’t they? You can really tell that they are fruit.”

“Fruit?” the Russian says while posing seductively with a thin slice of tomato poised next to her full lips.

“Yes, you know…” I continue. “As opposed to vegetable… I always had a hard time thinking of tomatoes as fruit because in the States where I live they don’t have much flavor.”

“Mmmm?” she adds with little conviction. “I suppose you must be right.”

I am clearly losing the battle for her attention so John leaps into the fray.

“Neville is a writer and a filmmaker too” he exaggerates. His interruption fails to hit its mark. The Russian continues on her oblivious tomato-loving way. However, all is not completely lost and Michel turns to me with sudden curiosity.

“You are filmmaker? You did not say this earlier. What film you make?”

“I’m not a filmmaker, exactly.” I have to admit. “I make videos. They’re kind of like travel videos, but not exactly…and I write kind of a travel blog, but not exactly.” I’ve never been very comfortable describing what I do and this floundering attempt quickly loses everyone’s interest and imagination and is quite rightly overshadowed by the arrival of the main course, a mountain of grilled perch filets and fresh vegetables.  Before we can fill our plates, the bearded stranger raises himself up and all eyes are immediately drawn to him.

 “My friends,” he says warmly. I have a toast for us tonight as well…” His toast is delivered in what appears to my ears to be almost perfect French. When it is completed we all drink with the requisite convivial gusto but John in his typical fashion is the first of us to ask for clarification.

“Why don’t you translate your toast for the rest of us so that we can all know what we just drank to?”

“Of course,” the bearded one smiles. “I said: What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all.  We have all chosen to be here together in Africa tonight and that I believe is a good thing for all of us.” 

I look over at Jean. He is sipping his wine and whispering quietly but with great sincerity something about “l’essence” and “l’existance.”

“What was that last bit, Jean?”  John asks with a cheeky smirk.  “I guessing some more Sartre, but it’s been years since I discussed French existential thought.  I’m afraid I’m a tad rusty.

“Very good, my friend. You are correct. We are both quoting Sartre.” The bearded one replies. Jean reminded us that: “Existence comes before essence.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?” I ask myself before realizing I have just spoken my thoughts out loud.

The bearded stranger holds out his glass of wine.  “It’s like this glass,” he says holding it to the light. The person who created this had a one purpose in mind – to make a beautiful container for wine. Whoever made it knew exactly what it would be used for.  The glass is made in a certain, definable manner and precisely for a specific purpose.  In the case of this glass, its essence – the sum of its production and its purpose – came before its existence.  The same is not true of us. We exist first then create our own essence.  Our choices determine what we are.”

“And God or some supreme being doesn’t enter into it?” John asks, quite obviously simply for the sake of stirring the philosophical pot.”

“Man is his own creator. As Sartre wrote: “There is no supernal artisan. There is no human nature because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. He is in possession of himself and the responsibility for his existence is squarely upon his own shoulders.” The bearded one then finishes off his glass and reaches for a new bottle of wine.

“I agree with the whole self-determination idea,” John says without a trace of cynicism, “but I don’t see how that necessarily excludes the hand of God from setting the whole thing in motion.”

“It’s science, man!” Justin suddenly blurts while knocking over his wine glass for added effect.  “Everything fits together.  Look around you, the formula works.  We are all one fucking big science project!”