Fantasy Food

Author's Note: I had great difficulty picking out a topic, but I was going for something weird. I wanted to create something that was very descriptive and I tried very hard to bring what I was saying to life in a way. I repeatedly used his mouth as a symbol and the theme was his change from "straight" to "crooked." It is not personal at all, just a strange piece I happened to come up with.

Watching and waiting, the man paced in a line. His stomach rumbled demanding food, but his mouth remained a straight line, never changing. Sweat trickled from his brow and the scorching sun baked his body through his thick uniform. In utter pride of protecting his country, he wore it, but more than anything, he wished to rip it off. A rumble came from beneath his feet, but he already knew what was coming.

His feet left the ground as an earsplitting boom left his ears ringing. Dust surrounded him as he scrambled to his feet. Not until he struggled to take cover did he realize he was seriously injured. Blood oozed through his uniform on his thigh as he limped behind a fallen sidewall. He glanced about him frantically, but what he saw didn’t correspond with what he was hearing. A battle scene took place in front of his eyes, but his ears continued to buzz, blocking out all noises.

With falling bodies all around him, he knew with no gun and an injury, he was in extreme danger. Without warning, an impact pinned him against the sidewall distorting his once straight and strong body. No sound escaped him, though even if it did, he wouldn’t have heard. Licking his lips, he tasted dust and the bitter taste of blood and with that, he was swallowed up in a world of darkness.

His eyes slid open, but in an effort to escape reality, he shut them hoping to drift back into the comforting darkness that had once surrounded him. But it was too late, the pounding had begun. Starting at his knee, slowly creeping up to his upper thigh, it felt as though his heart had travelled from his chest to his legs. Finally conjuring enough courage to peer out his eyes, he witnessed the cruel actuality of his situation—he was stuck.

His legs lay crooked and twisted under rubble, restricting any movement below his waist. He was trapped. How ironic, he thought to himself, that rocks should be the one to kill him. He chuckled, and with the spread of his lips, they cracked from dryness. Behind his now crooked smile, his mouth was unbearably dry. His throat ached for water. An uncontrollable creature rolled and lurched within him, commanding to be fed.

Distracting his mind from this agonizing desire, he searched for an escape. Among the debris, he spied an unidentified foot. This is not the time to be going crazy, he thought. Tracing the foot to its owner, he found it to be his own. While physically his foot was attached to his body, his once wiggling toes lifelessly laid unconnected.

Observing more of the scene, he spotted a puddle just out of reach from him. Chocolate. How absurd. How delightful. He reached and stretched, but the debris glued him to his place. Soo close, he thought. Stretching until his limbs ripped, his hands reached the spot of the pool of chocolate. After smearing it across his face in attempt to devour the dessert as quickly as possible, a bitter taste filled his mouth. Unsatisfied.

Sitting back into his original crooked position with mud blotched across his face, he noticed dust covering his body. No, not dust – powered sugar, of course! Licking his forearm, he coughed explosively. That’s when he saw it – the massive marshmallow only ten yards away from his position.

The colossal cloud of white candy standing ten feet tall stole his sight and drew him towards it. With a crooked grin, he sheepishly poked the delectable blob. His impatience got the best of him, with his mouth open wide, he threw his face into the puff and bit. Gnawing and nibbling, his jaw grew sore, so he clambered to the top and like a child on a trampoline, bounced. With each jump, the marshmallow would cushion his fall. Gasping in sheer playfulness, he landed, belly-up, on the giant delectable pillow.

The light of the sun blinded his eyes. Only until after closing his eyes did he realize the pounding in his ears had left, and the world around him was entirely mute. In his own hushed world, there was no line he couldn’t cross; he was free. While the rest of mankind’s mouths were straight and stiff, his curved. Finally satisfied, the man thought.

Just as quickly as his flight of imagination had been created, it was destroyed. With the beeping of a machine, he awoke from his fantasy to find himself in a white-walled room, his legs in casts. The doctor informed him that he would never fully recover, but the man was unfazed. He didn’t mind taking a cured mind, over a fragile body. He would rather be broken, than to feel and experience nothing at all. Resting his head on his pillow, he was consumed by slumber and once again escaped to his familiar world of fantasy.