|
A Bit Like Paul (McCartney)
He always started with the tomatoes. They were the messiest, but he'd start with those, trying to pick the one knife out of the drawer that had that edge that would catch on the tomato skin and, after a slight bulging between his finger and thumb, it would sigh open.
Some mornings he'd stop, and before splitting the thing open he'd bounce the knife off the tomato. Gently, so as not to visibly bruise the fruit, but enough so that he could feel the sudden lightness of the knife. Anyone looking in the window might think he was a tomato fetishist.
It was long counter, and he'd swipe some of the leftover tomato seeds and juice towards the sink. Then he'd shuffle down the counter, to where he'd left the bag of lettuce.
He'd generally wind up with four slices of tomato, on an average day. On a good day, he might end up with five, six, even. Sometimes six and fractions of tomato slices, on which he'd pour a very little bit of salt (taking the salt quickly and quietly out of the cupboard, and putting it back straightaway after he'd rinsed his hands) and throw into his jaw, like he imagined birds would throw tomatoes down their throat. This was how he used to eat tomatoes in the summer, as a kid. These mornings, it never failed to remind him of this.
So he'd move on, to the lettuce, and split the pieces out -- they'd generally not be big leaves, they tended to buy those bags of little pieces of lettuce, the exotic-sounding ones... which they never printed on this bag, but the various leaves looked like seaweed, all spiny and occasionally broad, dark, brooding leaves.
And so on, down the line. And in the end, he'd put this all on the bottom half of the bread, and roll over the jar of mayonaise, making a ball-bearing sound on the countertop.
He'd schhhhhhhh-luck the cap off with a quick spin or two, clink the knife off the insides of the jar as if it were a bizarro version of Operation, the game they'd played their first evening ever together. No one managed, that night, to get the funny bone, so maybe it wasn't such a bizarro version after all.
He'd slather the mayo on the top of the bread, which he'd always leave a little bit longer, while he got out the mayonaise, toasting in the oven, because they'd never gotten round to buying a toaster.
That would be it.
He'd bag it and tag it... well, magic marker it, usually with some kind of smiley face or something. An old-fashioned kind of smiley face, not like the kind that had been making their way into longhand from the ASCII-style so popular in chats and emails. He figured it wasn't difficult to get the gist of a sandwich, like it might be to get someone's tone when they write to you and suggest you go jump in a lake. Who the hell had ever made a malicious sandwich, anyway?
Well, Rasputin might argue someone did.
All the counter was left behind, sort of cleaned, swept towards the sink, but slowly growing sticky in the now quiet apartment.
disclaimer:
We didn't, as you may or may not have noticed, get eaten by Yeti.
You may have thought our servers did last week, as Sane appeared then appeared to disappear. Or something.
Which we had prepared you for, weeks and weeks ago, when we said something like what happened was going to happen.
And it did. Like predestination. Or fate. Or something.
And we swear we smelled something like brimstone, anyway, around the servers, so, well, you draw your own conclusions. If you cannot, at this time, conclusions shall be drawn for you, and we'll be publishing yet more predetermined events in the near future (which, in itself is a sort of prediction).
We promise, though, this week we'll be good, and constant. And we'll not upgrade any hardware or anything, and the only things we might do will be exciting and nonintrusive to your weekly viewing pleasure.
Thank you, and good night.
|
Yer Weekly Horoscopes.