‘never should you assume that any of this matters – even in the shallowest sense,’ says my friend moosaalhu.

we’re at don’s fiery chicken on the recommendation of a fellow reviewer whom i met at charukeys – i seem to recall it being dark and deafening! and with nothing pleasant to tether my ears to, the suggestion seemed to crawl at me from the bottom of a deep well, slowly, with great care and deliberation.

moosaalhu is of course talking about my reviews and oftentimes he makes the most banal pronouncements seem revelatory. it must be his enunciation. or cadence. inflection?

moosaalhu has the quiet, even tone of one to whom everything has been made plain, and everything is just as he imagined – it is of one who inhabits a higher cognitive plane whose workings can’t be apprehended by lesser men. it is clear though that he wants a reaction from me – discomfort, self-doubt, the glimmers of which he seeks in his friend.

‘what do you mean, the shallowest sense?’ i ask him. he smiles and says nothing.

‘anyway,’ i say. ‘i went to see the female astronaut speak at MNU the other day.’

‘huh,’ he says. ‘did she say: space big, i small?’ he grins.

‘i actually enjoyed it. i asked her a question afterwards.’

‘did you ask her if the earth was indeed a disc?’

on the matter of flat-earth ‘theory’, moosaalhu can be intensely argumentative and unrelenting, sunk into a special kind of stupidity that differs from the thoughtlessness of the true cognitively challenged.

‘did you, when you had the chance?’

our food arrives before i can answer. the bread is soft and easy to handle but the chicken, though generous, is a flat out disappointment. it is overcooked. we eat what we can of the stringy meat.

‘do you know what i asked her?’ i ask, wiping my mouth with a tissue.

‘tell me,’ he says.

i must remind you again that moosaalhu is an architect with scientific inclinations. as such, he watches bbc documentaries on the subject and listens to podcasts while vaccumming his rug and feeding his plants.

‘i asked her what the shape of a flame would be in space. not in space space, but inside the shuttle or space station.’

‘huh, that’s a stupid question,’ he responds dismissively. ‘it is obviously going to be the shape of whatever is combusting.’

‘it’s actually the shape of a ball,’ i tell him. ‘do you know why?’

‘that’s because what’s combusting is ball-shaped,’ he says.

‘there’s no mystery left in the world for you is there, moosaalhu?’ i say and he smiles in quiet vindication, this rennaissance man who has it all figured out.

we split the bill in half and scatter into the night like bits of space debris.