Mustaq’s wok rarely spills when he tosses onions. In fact, it almost never happens. This must be the second or third time I’ve seen him sweat since I joined Baloki Kitchen as a junior chef three years ago. For someone usually as imperturbable as a monk, watching him falter feels almost voyeuristic.

“Natasha, I need the sauce in five!” he barks, his eyes suddenly unfamiliar, carrying a strange heaviness beneath the lids. I had seen that weight once before—last winter, when the cold bit bitter and Mustaq, uncharacteristically, said nothing about my muffler. I leap from Joey’s station to mine, covering his pastry while keeping my gaze on Mustaq, trying to make sense of his ruckus.

His lips were mumbling, a silent chant, as he glanced frantically through the small kitchen window at the guests, back and forth. He clinically poured a sweep of prawn curry across the plate, as if defusing a bomb. It came close to perfection—close—but the flaw was obvious. His hands trembled. In panic, he tossed the plate into the bin and cried out in agony for another. This was not him. As I rushed to fetch new plates, one of the waiters called out before leaving, “Mint juice for table twelve.”

Mustaq registered it a few seconds too late. His eyelids cracked open like a toolkit snapping loose. He shouted at the top of his lungs to stop the staff serving anything to table twelve- crashing into corners, colliding with people and spilling plates. But it was already too late. The mint juice was in the hands of the family at table twelve.

* Mustaq leaned frozen against the kitchen door, angling himself just right— his face hidden, but one eye peering through the window. I didn’t know what to expect when Jimmy returned from the table. What would Mustaq do to him? At this point, it could’ve been anything—firing him on the spot or tearing his head open. Jimmy walked back, and Mustaq remained too rigid, too paralyzed to speak. The room was silent, confusion hanging thick in the air. Every eye turned toward Mustaq, waiting for his reaction. Jimmy looked around, baffled—unable to comprehend the sudden shift in energy, the eerie stillness pressing down on the room. I edged forward, craning for a glimpse of table twelve—the table that had somehow shaken everything. But from here, I couldn’t see faces—just the backs of heads and the occasional profile. They looked like an ordinary family: a couple in their fifties, and with them, two younger adults—a woman and a man, early thirties. They weren’t talking much, just sipping their soup, their gazes fixed firmly on their bowls. An ordinary, quiet table. *

It dawns upon me that it’s probabably the same time of the year that Mustaq acted like this. In my first month of joining which was exactly 3 year ago, I’d seen him freak out like this. could it be the same day, same time of the month that makes Mustaq this worked up? I turn to Mary whipping the purree unaffected, not sure to ask what she makes of this.