ODE TO KNOWING HOW ONE "LIKES IT"

Picture a Japanese restaurant.
Inside the restaurant is a Hibachi Chef, spraying Sake in a streamline
over his workstation,
across a dining table,
and into the mouth of a patron.
The Patron allows the Sake to rainbow into his mouth.
His friends watch, and they are proud- He is a pot of gold.
Other patrons notice, and they can't help but cheer him on.
He winks at the Chef because, after all,
they are in this together.
As the seconds pass, some of the Sake begins slipping down his throat
like a scorching waterfall.
The Patron's eyes go frantic, they are franticising.
His feet, though they started partnered like Missouri and Kansas,
are now Pacific and Atlanticising.
He makes gestures with his hands that he considers to be
probable forms of International Communication:
Desist! Desist? Desist!?

But the Chef continues endlessly arching the Sake.
The Chef makes high-pitched noises.
Some of the spectating patrons later recall hearing the Chef yelping, "Yeeee-haw."
But the scene soon sheds itself of spectators-
All that remains is the Chef at his station,
the Sake, and the Imbiber.
They are the last two people on Earth...
No. They are more than that.
They are the last two cockroaches on Earth,
Cockroaches without negative connotations because there is no one left to judge.
They are partners in persistence, the last left with destiny.

The Patron quakes-
and with that, his mouth collapses shut.
The Sake continues to spray into his beard,
like some horrible foreign fruit being hydrated in the produce section of the grocery store.
The jet stream finally falters, soaks the Patron's shoulder momentarily, and stops.
The Chef speaks to the Patron in broken English, "I know how you like it."

The spectators appear in time to question,

"Who knows? Maybe he does...."