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Hungry
The shapeless days of summer are
over. Now time is filled with
lunch boxes, endless sandwiches and pick up times. But the house is quiet. Finally time to think, she decides, and
collapses in the middle of the living room floor surrounded by the detritus of
the night before: Lego people stashed inside of tinny model cars having a car
show, wool blankets wadded on the couch, crumb-filled paper napkins quartered on
the end tables.
Every day is the same.Get
up, straighten up, pick up, fix up a meal, lay down, start again.The same sounds too: the garage door
going up, the car starting, the computer humming, the dishwasher washing, her
own voice yelling NO,
No!
Today could be different, she decides, still sitting in the middle of the
floor.Maybe it’s time to turn over a new
leaf.She pulls her mahogany
braid from behind her and stares at the ends, pinching off the splits and starts
to think.I could. . . And then she stops.She looks out the window, uncrossing her
legs and pulling herself up with her thigh muscles, like she learned in
aerobics.Her great claim to
fame.The queen of one, two, three, jump!A bird sits outside on the deck.His days are never the same, she
decides.He is free.
But she chose this prison, this life with its beginnings, middles and
ends.It’s just that I’m never satisfied, she
says to herself lining up the metal cars on the hearth, folding the blankets
into neat rectangles, putting the night’s paper in the wastebasket.I should be happy, she thinks and
tries hard to smile.Her mouth
starts to curl, and then slides back into its normal blank stare, like a car
whose battery makes a valiant effort to start, but never quite turns over.The living room clean, she moves into
the kitchen.Few dishes are in the
sink, but even a few aren’t perfect.I have to empty the dishwasher
first.She hates emptying the
dishwasher.It’s not even lunchtime yet and I’m already
lost.
She opens the refrigerator and picks at last night’s dinner.A couple of macaroni noodles, yellow
from the fake cheese sauce, and fibers of pork off half a slab, pushed into her
mouth, first the open mouth of a baby bird, then a gaping hole.A few more noodles, warm this time, in a
flowered bowl with extra butter, a couple of rib bones sticking out the side,
whale bones.She eats using a spoon
this time, standing up, the sticky, sugary sauce burning the roof of her mouth,
filling her.She doesn’t care.You were supposed to go on a diet, a
voice said to her, vibrating between her ears.If you keep eating like this, you’ll be a
pig by Christmas.Half of a
donut.Just half of a chocolate
glazed one from the box her husband had brought home last night.Then the other half.She eats on napkins, paper plates so
there is less evidence.She empties
the dishwasher while she eats, starts a load of laundry, feeling full of
energy.Emptying the dishwasher isn’t so bad,
she decides, licking a teaspoon of peanut butter off of her finger, leaving a
brown smear on a clean plate.That one will have to be washed again,
she says to herself, feeling disappointed, like someone let just a little bit of
air out of a balloon.Not a lot,
but enough that she feels the softness around her.
The food makes her feel buoyant and shining, like she has her own
personal sun gleaming inside.She
eats some more, finishing the macaroni and a couple more donuts- he knows I can’t resist donuts!- has a
bowl of applesauce with extra cinnamon- for the fiber- and a peanut butter and
blueberry jelly sandwich.A blob of
jelly lands on the floor and she wipes it up with her finger, a hair sticking to
it.She puts it in her mouth
anyway.Her stomach feels
warm.If I’m going to eat all of this, I might as
well have dessert.But she
stops when she realizes that she already has.Stops for a moment.Today is ruined.I’ll start my diet tomorrow, she
thinks, and her head fills with thoughts of grapefruit and protein bars, while
her hands shove chips and candy into her mouth.The bag crinkles and she looks around,
wondering if anyone heard her, but then she remembers that everyone is out- her
husband, her kids, her neighbors- living their lives.
Her stomach loses its buoyancy, and now feels like a half-formed
embryo.She looks down and lays her
hand on it, the way a pregnant mother caresses her unborn child, except she has
no love for it.She is filled with
food from top to bottom, the last donut stuck at the top of her throat.She moves to the couch, waiting for the
pain of her stretching stomach to subside, the rush of food dimming her senses
and lulling her to sleep.It isn’t
restful, though, and she doesn’t nap for long. Her body doesn’t want to let her
forget what she has done to it, the abuse she has poured on it instead of
love.She wakes up with bile in her
mouth and wishes she could throw up, to vomit it all, brown and watery, in to
the toilet, and wonders what it would feel like, the cold, smooth spoon touching
the most sensitive place in the back of her throat.Her eyes start to water just thinking
about it, but her stomach won’t let go.Her body will make her live through this again, as a punishment, just
like it had in the past, like a snake that had swallowed a football.God, I hate
myself.
Her soap opera came on, and she knows it is almost time to go get the
kids.They are expecting her to be
joyous at their release from school, but she doesn’t want to pick them up,
doesn’t want to see anyone ever again.She just wants to stay on the couch.Then she realizes they will be looking
for the donuts and wondering why there was only one and a crumb of another left
in the box, why there is no more macaroni, when she had announced happily at
dinner the night before, “Look, there will be enough for tomorrow!” She’ll have
no explanation when they ask, except to say that there is never enough.
Karen Kalis As a freelance writer, Karen has had over a dozen credits published and holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Antioch University.
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