I looked again at Sal, a twenty-year-old with a large, creased forehead. He had studied computer engineering first at CalTech, and now at Stony Brook. He also studied guitar and drama. He cradled the eggplant parmigiano hero lovingly in his hands and closed his eyes before each bite, as if bracing for the next dose of ecstasy.
"Observe the maestro chow hound," Atmananda announced.
We laughed.
Sal had apparently adjusted to his role as chow hound. He continued to eat as if nothing happened.
"If only Sal could focus on the Infinite rather than on the eggplant," Atmananda noted, "he would be the first among us to realize God."
It was fun eating out with Atmananda. After dinner, we often continued the fun and the fight against the Forces at the movies.
One time, Atmananda took us to Warlords of Atlantis. He bought five buckets of heavily buttered popcorn, Tabs, Cokes, diet Cokes, boxes of licorice, Sno-caps, and Raisinetes. Then, from the fourth row—Atmananda claimed that four was a power number—we watched a film which, at the time, seemed extraordinary.
Atmananda sat by the aisle of the nearly empty theatre. He whispered something to Sal, who told Tom, who told my brother, who told me: "Atlantis was once a real city."
"Atlantis was a real city," I told Anne, who told Dana, who told Suzanne. Meanwhile, juxtaposed at an intersection of transmigrating junk food, I further divided my attention between monitoring what needed to be passed, trying not to notice the women, and watching a man on the screen discover a lost world of magic and conflict under the sea.
"We all had past lives in Atlantis."