Joshua Cohen - Witz

Shalom, Garden! the Voice says, that of their new deity who’s to be referred to only as Das, good morning!

Overhead, generationold fluorescents go mercury mad gas discharge, flick flick flicker, remain fixed.

On the square just outside, a slip of water once used for docking and now, frozenover, an orchestra tunes, warming up for the Flag Raising, delayed.

As for the flag, for now it’s just a naked pole, as no one knows which stars to fly — the fifty spangles of fivepointed, or the single whose points number six, maybe both. We’ll keep you informed; it’s still being worked out in committee.

0630 is the time of Morning Prayer, which is known as Shacharit, don’t ask — with a projected thousand minyans open to any denomination; rabbis off to form groups, scrambling to put in the forms for tallis and Torah. A guide to available services is to be posted like teffilin between your eyes, upon your arms, then on the walls between the two Commissaries; check it, as there should be daily updates.

On the Sabbath, though, things are different, and on Fridays late, too, when the holy begins. Shabbos it’s called, mark it TBA — we’ll proceed; I’m sure you’re all very hungry…

And so you’ll be excited to know that everything’s kosher. Always, it’s glatt, rest assured: no outside food’s ever allowed. Mehadrin. The Shade Administration vouches; the President’s given the hechsher himself. Hope that answers your question. What else? We begin serving at 0700, and provide three meals per day. Our menu revolves each moon, regurgitates you might say. All meals are served in the Commissary, which you’ll find labeled on the maps provided as #7…and there’s a mass folding over, an accordion wheeze of outscrolled paper, a squeezeboxy tear. Might we share, mind if I save myself over your shoulder. Seven, sieben, sept, sette, siete, siedem, hét …interpreters secreted throughout the Hall call out numbers, the informative Babel. On offer are all your favorite popular cereals of sugared flakes, and healthy granola, too, müsli with seasonal fruits to top (allow us to take the opportunity to thank our wonderful sponsors, including ten or so companies allied with prominent senators and a conglomerate or two for which President Shade had once been on board), along with a full complement of milks, percentaged whole to skim and flavored almond, butter, chocolate, and soy, those for the lactose intolerant. Of course, we’re speaking of the Milk Commissary, it’s the dairy that’s talking; you’ll find the Meat nextdoor, labeled with the #8 and eight echoes throughout: acht, huit, otto, ocho, osiem, nyolc, BOCEM …of course, both are strictly supervised; we’ve got inspectors working around the clock, mash-giachs they’re called, stick around, you’ll get good with the slang. As most of the survivors, like most of the dead, are unobservant, Kashrut, which as it’s explained again and again and in the deepest of details is the keeping of the dietary laws as given down from a mountain made of earth and so, inedible, will take some getting used to: please, Rabbi Bunkmate — explain to me the lack of brunchmeats, the sausages forbidden, the absence of bacons neither lofat, nor excessively stippled…why O why is brunch always dairy?

Welcome to your tour of the Commissaries…these two long and low, screenseparated, twoentranced rooms, tiled and laid with tables separated by squat columns themselves tiled an institutional white. To the left, where you get your silverware and your fine china, a burning bush of metal. A sign’s lettered italicized, bold — Deposit Trays— And —Dishes Here. To the right, the foods, their lines forever long, lasting throughout the day beginning with night then into the same meal next, all over again: lunkfast, linner, dunch, and on into brunch, how they’re still queued, thousands deep — everyone, to the omelet station! with its migrant who knows and who cares from where chefs flipping the contents of skillets over their hotplates, a freewheeling cheese selection apportioned on translucent plastic cuttingboards, grapestarred and nutted, crumbling gouda, gooey brie; alongside the vegetable offerings: pepperwell giving green, red, sweet, and spicy; imported onions to tear; mushrooms handpicked: a delightful array of mycological oddities imported from Wielkopolska, grown in premium mycelia of don’t want to think about it, its earth, nu, don’t think to ask. I should mention a bit about the eggs, though — they aren’t dairy, and yet neither are they meat. Fleischig’s the term for the flesh. Milchig just as it sounds, for the milk, what a lingo. Rather, eggs are exemplar of that third species they’ll know from now on as Pareve. It’s neutral; gustatorily speaking no mensch’s land. Meaning not this, neither that, here-there, yes-no…I know, it’s tricky. You’ll adjust — that’s a promise.

Their guide’s a guiltless intern in from Bumble, Iowa, here to gain experience in any field that’s not corn. He stops for a breath, savoring the waft of fresh bake…this is the Bread Section, a vast marbleized surface mensched by a skilled cutter of crusts resembling Dad, Aba, whatever you called him even if he was absent, at meetings away, always at work; and we can’t forget the bagels, now, can we? In daily from the yeastiest beaches of Brooklyn, trucked across the ice hot and fresh, crustysoft suns of hole, burnished rings of gold: waterboiled glutinous, everything to plain, toastable in individual toasting units located just across from the containers that safeguard the condiments, that keep and preserve; the oils, vinegars, sweet and salty dressings, and interjacent to extensively sneezeguarded, oftrefreshed troughs of spreads both flavored and plain, butters and buttery marge, jellies, jams, preserves with rind or peel and without: creamedcheeses, schmears plain and whipped, and all those brands that’ve been liberally flecked with tomatoes sundried then shredded, infused with salmon smoked, chopchived, too, mostly for the edification of the adults among them, or that of any kinder preternaturally sophisticated, with according discernment of palate. We aim to please; that’s what we’re here for, what we’re for here. To stuff a nameless napkin into the comments box, the charity of complaint. We Welcome Your Suggestions. We need less, want more. And out. And then further on down the line, the line’s line endless, a waiting wait — to push, to pushshoulder, shoulderelbow with knee and hand shove ahead their trays along runners: beggars can be choosers only here; among these loaves and hairnetted fishes, gravlaxed, herrings sweet and sour, in wine and briny cream. Selection varies. Appetites, too, then tastes. At the far end of the Milk against the screening wall on whose other side is a replica for the service of Meat, the saladbar, administered by women with a tendency to spit: they demand you eat your veggies. A clean plate policy’s in effect, don’t you know, enforced on pain of seconds served up with a side of guilt. These mothers cry, eat up! grow already, will you?

And if you’re thirsty, their guide announces, on this tour a mild mestizo Mexican named Fausto, he says, spiffed in yarmulke and tracksuit, and I know I am…laughs ensue, titters — we’re proud to offer only the best in juices, squeezed fresh on our premises from choicest Florida citrus (from concentrate); this served up to their parched from out of great gurgling rubbermade trashcans stirred with oars, then ladled out with plastic pitchers roped and knotted off to handles, each of them the trashes labeled large in yelloworange spraypaint with product, Pulp, A Little Pulp, and Very Very Little, none without. As for wine, it’s served only on Fridays, with Shabbos dinner, which you’ll be eating with your families assigned — red or white, good vintage. All name brands, overstock from California. And Palestein, also. If it’s ever water you want, feel free to find an icicle to suck.