| Author: Minnie Rating: PG Category: Original Fiction Notes: Please do not archive elsewhere without permission. This one's a catharasis of sorts or me dealing with some old demons. Thank you, C, for never giving up. Archive Date: 8/7/2002 You glance at the emtpy cupboard in the kitchen and panic rises in your throat. Suddenly, you're seventeen again. Seventeen and looking at the last of the packets of Ramen noodles sitting in a hollow cabinet. Seventeen and watching three hungry mouths and taking less than a quarter of the noodles out of the pot. "My stomach's smaller so I don't need as much." Seventeen and seeing your siblings nod while you silently curse the irresponsible adults in -- out of -- your life. They left and you were on your own. Your brother glances at the empty cupboard and laughs as he stocks it with potato chips, mung beans, Portugese sardines and strawberry Jello. "All your favorites, sis!" Mung beans were never your favorite. You hated them, their coarse texture, their gritty, sandy taste. But you don't correct him because he got three out of four right and none of them came with 4-for-$1 tags. The tightness in your throat eases and you're back to being thirty-ish. There are six pints of ice cream in your freezer that you call dinner sometimes and enough bacon and hotdogs in the meat storage shelf of the fridge to feed a busload of kids. You ask him if he got soda too. When he answers "I forgot", you mock-punch him and say, "You never buy the important stuff!" He turns to you, feet stumbling, laughter fading. "We always used to buy them, didn't we?" You see a parade of soggy noodles in his eyes, hear the old pot boiling in his voice and feel the presence of people huddling around too large and too empty table in his stance. "Yeah." Your nod is curt, almost defiant. "We did." He nods back, starts to grin and there's nothing there except his teeth and mouth. "Things are different now." Somewhere between seventeen and thirty -- you forgot when -- your bones got tired and achy from working too much. Overtime was regular time but you didn't care because you could concentrate on words other than staples, bills and stomach. "Yeah." You think of the three-quarters-full loaf of bread you just threw out because the expiration date was past. You had two more loaves waiting a couple of weeks for the trash can. "Want some Jello?" He smiles as he grabs the box and holds it high above your head. "Hey, hands off my Jello, bro!" He disappears to the living room, laughing and taunting. You let him and the Jello go because it doesn't matter. You could always get some more. You close the cupboard door and wave goodbye to the past. -End- HOME ORIGINAL FICTION FAN FICTION |
| History The past comes back to haunt you |