(no subject)
So... this thing just popped into my head yesterday, and I had to write it down. It's probably crap, but what the hell, I'm posting it anyway. Feel free to comment on it if it strikes your fancy.
She thinks about him every time she eats baloney sandwiches, an event that becomes more and more frequent as the semester creeps to a close and the student loan money dwindles. The cafeteria at school is always terrible and she never has the money to eat out. She can live for two weeks on one package of baloney, two loaves of bread, and one block of cheese, which means that she can afford to have Internet access at her tiny apartment. It’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make.
She peels the bright red wrapper and tries not to think about him biting smiley faces into the baloney to make her smile. She buys the thick-cut slices, the kind that are a little more expensive, but taste more solid than the thiner ones. They always come ringed in red plastic, and she has no idea why. There are a lot of things about baloney that she doesn’t understand, but she thinks it’s probably better that way.
If she doesn’t pay attention when she’s making her sandwiches, she’ll make them, out of habit, the way he likes them - two slices of baloney, one slice of colby-jack cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, and two fat pickle slices. She used to eat them that way, too. But now, the tang of the mustard and the sweet-sour of the pickles jar in her mouth unpleasantly and it makes her feel sick.
She gets a knife from the drawer and spreads a little mayo on one of the slices of wheat bread. He always preferred white. She doesn’t really have a preference either way, but she tends not to buy the same things that they bought together. She switched laundry detergent after he left, too.
The knife clinks against the sides of the jar, and she makes a mental note to buy more when she goes shopping again. She used to love shopping, when she had money. It was silly and shallow, but it felt nice to be able to buy a new pair of shoes or a book when it struck her fancy. Now, she only shops at the impossibly tiny grocers up the road, the place that only stocks food and a handful of personal items. It’s just not fun to go any place that forcibly reminds her of how little she has.
She peels out a slice of cheese and places it on top of the baloney. She used to put the pickles between the baloney and the cheese, but she doesn’t even buy pickles any more. She never even really liked them to begin with, but for some reason she could tolerate them on baloney sandwiches with him.
She always presses firmly on her sandwiches when finishes them, and she has no idea why. She imagines that she probably saw her mother or her grandmother do it at some point. He used to make fun of her, saying that a sandwich wasn’t finished until she’d smashed it down. He told her he could taste her on the bread after she pressed her flat palm against the bread, and that it made the whole thing taste better. She would roll her eyes at him, but deep down it delighted her that he loved her so much. She wondered from the first moment they met how she could ever have deserved someone like him.
She doesn’t consciously think about him, but sometimes she swears she can feel him next to her in the kitchen as she bites into her sandwiches. She tried to forget him, but that was a dismal failure. Reminding herself not to think about him only made her think about him more, and so she decided not to forget him. She accepts her thoughts of him, and moves on with her days. She has imaginary conversations with him in her head sometimes when she eats. Not the person he was at the end - cold, desperate, angry. In her mind he’s the man she fell in love with, happy and confident and smart.
She always thought that at some point she would stop thinking about him. She’d never had a problem putting people behind her in the past. But she knows now that it doesn’t work that way with him. He’s never far from her thoughts, it’s just not quite as painful to think about him now. She still can’t bear to see a picture of him, and if she ever saw him in person, she would probably fall apart. But memories of him don’t haunt her they way they did in the immediate aftermath of the break-up.
She could switched to eating turkey or ham, and have one less reason to think about him every day, but she doesn’t. She needs those baloney memories because they help her remember everything that was beautiful and sweet about their relationship, before things got bad. She doesn’t want to lose the goodness they had in all the murky disappointment that preceded the end.
She finishes eating her sandwich and puts the meat and cheese and mayo in the fridge and tosses the bread in the basket on the counter. She wipes the crumbs from the counter and brushes them off her fingers in the sink. As she leaves the kitchen, his memory fades to the back of her mind once again, where he’ll stay until the next sandwich. Until the next baloney memory carries her back to when she was happy, and when she was loved.
She thinks about him every time she eats baloney sandwiches, an event that becomes more and more frequent as the semester creeps to a close and the student loan money dwindles. The cafeteria at school is always terrible and she never has the money to eat out. She can live for two weeks on one package of baloney, two loaves of bread, and one block of cheese, which means that she can afford to have Internet access at her tiny apartment. It’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make.
She peels the bright red wrapper and tries not to think about him biting smiley faces into the baloney to make her smile. She buys the thick-cut slices, the kind that are a little more expensive, but taste more solid than the thiner ones. They always come ringed in red plastic, and she has no idea why. There are a lot of things about baloney that she doesn’t understand, but she thinks it’s probably better that way.
If she doesn’t pay attention when she’s making her sandwiches, she’ll make them, out of habit, the way he likes them - two slices of baloney, one slice of colby-jack cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, and two fat pickle slices. She used to eat them that way, too. But now, the tang of the mustard and the sweet-sour of the pickles jar in her mouth unpleasantly and it makes her feel sick.
She gets a knife from the drawer and spreads a little mayo on one of the slices of wheat bread. He always preferred white. She doesn’t really have a preference either way, but she tends not to buy the same things that they bought together. She switched laundry detergent after he left, too.
The knife clinks against the sides of the jar, and she makes a mental note to buy more when she goes shopping again. She used to love shopping, when she had money. It was silly and shallow, but it felt nice to be able to buy a new pair of shoes or a book when it struck her fancy. Now, she only shops at the impossibly tiny grocers up the road, the place that only stocks food and a handful of personal items. It’s just not fun to go any place that forcibly reminds her of how little she has.
She peels out a slice of cheese and places it on top of the baloney. She used to put the pickles between the baloney and the cheese, but she doesn’t even buy pickles any more. She never even really liked them to begin with, but for some reason she could tolerate them on baloney sandwiches with him.
She always presses firmly on her sandwiches when finishes them, and she has no idea why. She imagines that she probably saw her mother or her grandmother do it at some point. He used to make fun of her, saying that a sandwich wasn’t finished until she’d smashed it down. He told her he could taste her on the bread after she pressed her flat palm against the bread, and that it made the whole thing taste better. She would roll her eyes at him, but deep down it delighted her that he loved her so much. She wondered from the first moment they met how she could ever have deserved someone like him.
She doesn’t consciously think about him, but sometimes she swears she can feel him next to her in the kitchen as she bites into her sandwiches. She tried to forget him, but that was a dismal failure. Reminding herself not to think about him only made her think about him more, and so she decided not to forget him. She accepts her thoughts of him, and moves on with her days. She has imaginary conversations with him in her head sometimes when she eats. Not the person he was at the end - cold, desperate, angry. In her mind he’s the man she fell in love with, happy and confident and smart.
She always thought that at some point she would stop thinking about him. She’d never had a problem putting people behind her in the past. But she knows now that it doesn’t work that way with him. He’s never far from her thoughts, it’s just not quite as painful to think about him now. She still can’t bear to see a picture of him, and if she ever saw him in person, she would probably fall apart. But memories of him don’t haunt her they way they did in the immediate aftermath of the break-up.
She could switched to eating turkey or ham, and have one less reason to think about him every day, but she doesn’t. She needs those baloney memories because they help her remember everything that was beautiful and sweet about their relationship, before things got bad. She doesn’t want to lose the goodness they had in all the murky disappointment that preceded the end.
She finishes eating her sandwich and puts the meat and cheese and mayo in the fridge and tosses the bread in the basket on the counter. She wipes the crumbs from the counter and brushes them off her fingers in the sink. As she leaves the kitchen, his memory fades to the back of her mind once again, where he’ll stay until the next sandwich. Until the next baloney memory carries her back to when she was happy, and when she was loved.