"Well. I can see what'll be narrating my nightmares tonight," your dad said.
He took your mom's hand and they walked out of the dark stomach of the Angus Bowmer Theater. They excused themselves past people bottlenecking the exit, people in sundresses and summer polos, people clutching playbills and purses, your mom and dad putting on shades and sniffing out a place to eat from the bricked-over greenway outside.
Oriental was the answer to the meal question, even after the feudal Japanese violence they'd just witnessed via a play (Throne of Blood) based on a film (directed by Akira Kurosawa) based on a play (Hamlet). Oriental was the answer, even after, in the play, the albino loom weaver shook its head side to side and spoke in three simultaneous voices. Even after the spotlight choked black at the end, the final image being Washizu--Throne's Hamlet--speared with a dozen arrows, his gurgling breaths the incongruent prelude to a standing ovation.
At Sesame, your mom and dad plied Sichuan noodles and basa fish with metal chopsticks. They traded bowls halfway through and sipped sour lemongrass punch from a glass bedecked with an umbrella and a plastic monkey. A man in bicycle shorts at the next table asked your dad what he'd ordered that was so hot. Your dad was sucking air between his tight lips. "It's these," your dad said, holding up a small red pepper. "These are what get you." The man in bicycle shorts smiled, eventually paid his tab, and walked out without really anywhere else to go.
Your mom and dad didn't remember the drive back. At home, you sat up with your hand balanced on the babysitter's knee. Your mom and dad had also forgotten to turn on the air conditioning before they left, and the late afternoon heat had pushed the indoor thermometer up to eighty. Your dad apologized again and again, but you weren't bothered, and any nightmare imagery your dad was carrying soon dissipated.
