Peanut Butter Sandwich Angst

-enjoy-

 

Danica sat at her old wooden kitchen table that was covered in water stains, food stains, and initials and stared. There on that table surrounded by the water stains, food stains, and initials was a sandwich. The sandwich had sat there on its pure white paper plate for quite a while. As had Danica, though she sat on dingy plastic chair, not a paper plate. It had been hours since she had taken the bread out of the cupboard and spread the Jiffy smooth peanut butter on it. The bread was white bread, and quickly staling. Though, that didn’t matter much to her.

The sun was setting and the kitchen was dimming, but she barely noticed. All she did was sit and stare. After a while, though, the tension got to be too much. Standing, she dug her almost empty pack out of her too big jeans and walked to the window. There she stood, looking out over the city below. The skyline. The people. The cars. Leaning her head back against the window frame she finished her first cigarette and quickly reached to light another.

“The last one,” she thought as she flicked her half dry lighter; waiting for the flame. Exhaling towards the open window Danica looked back at the sandwich. Feeling the hole inside her growing she quickly tried to fill it with smoke and the noises from below.

To the world outside and below this seemed to be a queer image, but not to Danica. She knew it all too well.

“I can’t now,” she thought leaving the kitchen. She went into her sparsely furnished and decorated bedroom and grabbed a jacket. It was May, but she never went anywhere without her jacket these days. Dumping her keys into her purse she left, locking the door on the sandwich that had been haunting her.

She stepped out of her building into the warm air and wrapped her jacket tighter around her small body. Turning right she walked in the direction of a newsstand to pick up a fashion magazine. Maybe then people wouldn’t stare. Then she might have an excuse. She knew all the tricks. They were all a shallow attempt to disguise the metaphorical Jew star she felt adorned all of her oversized clothes.

Walking through the packed streets she could feel people quickly averting her eyes, and she knew. Forgetting about the cigarettes for the time she crossed the street and entered the park. There she found a rock and laid down. Danica closed her eyes and breathed; trying to forget the image of her reflection in the mirror every morning. And the sandwich still waiting on the table. And the empty pack in her pocket that she wished was full. And she remembered Michael.

Oh, sweet Michael. He had only been trying to do the right thing. “But if only he knew,” she whispered to herself. “If only he knew what she felt. Why she did the things she did. It was all for him. If only he could have seen that.” Feeling tears collecting behind her paper thin eyelids she turned her head and let them fall. “If only he could have known; could have seen it,” she screamed in her head. “But he didn’t,” she said in the only whisper she could manage to create.

After a while the tears slowed and stopped and finally dried on her hollow cheek bones. Standing, Danica wrapped her jacket tighter and climbed down. Looking around to see what to do next her gazed stopped on two people laughing and walking towards her. Adrenaline coursed through her stretched body, but she couldn’t move. They were getting closer, but she couldn’t move.

“Danica?”

“Yeah. Hi.”

“How are you,” Michael asked.

“Fine. I’m fine. You?”

“I’m good. Are you sure you’re fine,” he asked taking in the full picture. There stood Danica, wearing jeans that barely staid on, a long sleeve shirt that did nothing to hide her numerous hallows, and a wrinkled jacket. Her hair was long and stringy and her too heavy makeup was smeared on blotchy. And there stood Michael. In his perfect jeans and his concert shirt from what had probably been a great show he went to without her. His messy bark blonde hair looked like he had just gotten out of bed and his perfect teeth shown through his soft lips. And the girl beside him was just as opposite of Danica as Michael.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Really,” she replied insistently.

“No, you’re not. You’re still the same, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m fine. Good. Almost great.

“What’s keeping you from being great?” he asked quizzically.

“Well, this little thing I like to call karma. Apparently I was a very bad girl in a past life. So now I have to pay,” Danica replied comically; it was another desperate attempt to divert the conversation. It didn’t work.

“You don’t believe in karma.”

“I don’t? Really? I though I did, but I guess not.”

“Are you ever going to get passed this?” he asked with a look of almost genuine concern in his eyes.

“Probably not,” she stated plainly. “Bye, Michael.”

“Bye, Danica.”

They stood there as she walked away. To where she wasn’t yet sure, but she couldn’t have staid there listening to Michael pretending to care while his new girlfriend played with her hair and held his hand. “It was all for you. But you never knew that,” she thought tiredly.

There was nowhere for her to go. So begrudgingly she returned home, to an empty apartment and a sandwich. She returned to her position at the table and stared. But even a staring contest with a sandwich she lost. Looking down at the table she saw MAB carved into the soft wood. Absentmindedly she traced Michael’s initials with her finger while casting sidelong glances at the sandwich. Looking towards the ceiling above Danica stood and grabbed a knife out of the sink.

Taking a deep breath she began scratching out his carving. “Good-bye, Michael,” she said when she was done. Putting down the knife she picked up the sandwich and took a bite before she had a chance to think. The bread was way beyond stale and the peanut butter was warm and runny, but it was good. “Good-bye, Michael,” she said again, almost smiling as she took another bite.

Reviews

[Yaooooooo]

Very well written..
Keep up the good wrok and feel free to send me a request...
Thanks for sharing,
One!