Monday, May 16, 2011

The Memory

I was in the middle of an amazing conversation with the most beautiful woman I'd seen around town when all of a sudden the lights went out. Just my luck! As my eyes adjusted, the woman, Bianca, made a hasty farewell and left before I could get a plea to stay out of my frowning mouth. One moment I'm completely happy for once, and the next I'm left alone with no company except for the thickening smell of pie.
Wait, pie?
In the dark, I sit alone at a two person booth and let the smell overwhelm me. My eyes drifted closed as I slowly let my mind slip away. A distant memory was calling to me, one that I hadn't thought about in a while. There was a reason why I hadn't recalled it, an important one. All of a sudden, a huge amount of fear surged over me. I musn't continue to think, to remember, before it's too late. But it was. Because once you start a flashback, there's no stopping it.
I'm four, five, young. I'm standing in the kitchen of my first home staring up at the bustling woman hunched in front of the stove. The smell of stew fills my nose, and a harsh hunger swamps my thin frame. It had been too long since my last meal, but the important people were coming tomorrow. I knew they were important because everytime they came it was the same, very methodical. They would sit in our bare living room, talk to my mother, and then call me in. Then they would stare at me, telling me to turn this way and that, as if I were a pig ready for butchering. But I was the opposite. I was bone thin, a ghost. They would weigh me, and although I didn't grasp the severity of my state at the time, the people's expressions were always worried enough to let me know something was wrong.
So my mother, knowing that tomorrow was yet again the day, gathered up our last meager supply of food and started cooking stew. But it was only enough for one.
"Momma what are you gonna eat?" I asked as I stared up at her.
"I'll be fine, honey, don't worry about mommy. Just eat this yummy food once it's ready so that we can stay a family."

"What do you mean, stay a family?"
"Nevermind dear, don't worry. Just eat this." And with that she set down the small bowl on the table, so I ate it because I wanted her frown to go away. And it did for a while. But then we both heard her stomach growl.
"Mommy's gonna take a nap, now," and she hurried away before her stomach could continue to grumble. All this talk of remaining a family combined with my mother's hunger made my young mind start to worry again. What I understood later is that the important people were child services, and were keeping an eye on my weight. If it dropped below a certain level, I would be taken away.
But at the time I didn't care about myself, I only cared about her.
As soon as I heard snores, I slipped out of our small apartment onto the busy street. My short, stubby legs carried me down the street to a market where I knew food could be found. I was too young to consider the consequences of my actions, only the rewards. So I grabbed the first thing I saw. A large, decadent blueberry pie.
The police caught up to me after only one block.
The next day, my mother was forced to tell the service people about my "stunt". Being a theft of food, it naturally didn't look to good. And that was the last time I ever saw her. She didn't even get to eat the pie.
Over the years, I was shuffled from home to home, changing whenever my foster parents got tired of my newly developing "habits". They would find something valuable stashed under my bed, or in my pillowcase, and deem me a thief. But I didn't consider myself a thief, I just liked to grab things, ad they never left the house. But then I would. And pretty soon, I was old enough to never return.
So here I am, who knows how many years later, sitting alone, in the dark, smelling blueberry pie. All of a sudden I'm standing, disgusted with myself, my life. I bolted, the blueberry making me sick to my stomach. I knocked down everyone in my path - there was a lot, many people had come to buy some pie - including a young man just staring at an empty spot on the floor. Or was it empty? I couldn't be sure. I just needed to get the hell out of there.

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