There was the Chinese takeout in the fridge with the chopsticks still in the box. Then the stir-fry he made the other night which he warmed on the stove and ate straight from the wok. He left the burner on and prepared eggs, some yolk still runny, some white still watery, and with little bits of shell. There were apples and pears, a bag of baby carrots, just enough veggie dip, pierogi. There was salsa and queso but no chips, so he used saltines instead. Into a salad bowl went a jar of olives, the fish sauce, the hot sauce, the oyster sauce, and the relish; and then the vinaigrette, the thousand island, the mustard, and the ranch — mixed and eaten with a wooden spoon, chased with the final lager.

From the cupboards, he ate the cat food since she’d taken the cat, and the dog food since he’d run away. And then the honey and the steel-cut oatmeal and the mason jars of flour and pancake mix. There were bags of ramen that he ate uncooked, and popcorn eaten unpopped, and the spices and dried herbs from that one shelf; then a can of asparagus near the sellby date, and at the very back, out of reach for years, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie filling, dusty and with faded labels, leftover from their first Thanksgiving in the house.

When the cupboards were bare he picked up the phone and took a bite out of the receiver. Frayed wires curled out of the end. It came apart in his mouth like corn chips; he wished he’d saved some of that cheese dip from earlier. He took another bite and finished off the mouthpiece. The spiraling cord fell to the carpet but he picked it up and began to suck and chew, slurping up the long and unpredictable curl of the noodle. He ate the phone cradle, crumbling like walnuts, and then he nibbled the wire that led into the wall. The topmost layer of paint came away, revealing skins of striped wallpaper he never realized were there, and then he took a large bite from the wall itself and his teeth pushed through it like cake, and the insulation caramelized on his tongue. The support struts in the walls were like ginger cookies and the wiring lemongrass. He turned back to the kitchen and made for the counters which pried away like fruit rinds and then the folding chairs which snapped and tasted like chicken wings and the light fixtures like butterscotch discs and the windows, shattering at first but then dissolving. The glass stuck to the roof of his mouth like sheets of dried seaweed. He tore the refrigerator apart and ate the outer casing and the shelving inside, all of it like raw potatoes except the smudges in the corners like sausage gravy, and then to the pots and pans and the dinnerware and the utensils, like foil chewing gum wrappers. In the living room he ate the empty picture frames folded in half like pizza slices, and then the triple-decker sandwich books and the matzo shelving, and the geegaws and the doodads like Cracker Jack. At the stairs, the balustrade and the banister were crusts on baguettes, and he worked over each step and the middle landing, mowing off the sprouted carpet and the boards beneath. The nails were soft, each mouthful like whole sardines. There were no steps left, and he was stranded on the top floor.

To the guest bathroom where the pills in the medicine cabinet trickled tangy past his teeth and the porcelain snapped easily and jicama wet; the soap slivers gathered in a dish were waxy and fresh— cucumber and basil and the occasional invigorating spike of coastal pine; the grout between tiles he scraped away with his fingers like hardened molé on a plate. He rifled through the hamper in the corner where hair and dust had settled an inch thick around it. He hated the taste of his own clothes, the whole stink of himself, but he found one of her gym socks crumpled at the very bottom. It looked less like something she’d worn and more like a discarded napkin. He brought it to his mouth and it spread, melting at the touch of his breath like fresh mozzarella. From its texture and scent he could reconstruct the contours of her foot and her calf and her knees and her hips and her torso and the stem of her neck and the jut of her chin, even those freckles on her shoulders that only appeared in the summer, and the tea stains on her front teeth that completed her smile. He kicked down wall after wall on his way to the bedroom and then pressed his face into the sunken parts of the mattress that their bodies had left behind. It was fig ice cream dripping from mouth to neck and shoulders to his hands, which he licked and couldn’t stop licking because there was, for the first time in this house for so long, so much of a flavor that he missed, like a voice at the top of the stairs, like music in the next room, like the announcement of a door hinge, like a mug on the dresser, like breath on his skin in the night as he slept, like an argument through a locked bathroom door, like vacant stares at one another across the hall, like shouts, like accusations, like cold dinners, like a slap, like a shove, like nails, like yellowing bruises on wrists and forearms, like an unlocked front door, like a handwritten note, like keys in an envelope; the history of suffocation like a gym sock at the bottom of the hamper. And it was almost filling.

The floor gave way beneath him and he fell into the den, crashing mouth first through a card table in the center of the room. He dug through the floor and ate the foundation, gnawing, tearing, a dog at a pig ear, then sucking at the great whale bones of the building that protruded from the ground. The rest of the house funneled down into his mouth. In the swirl he could make out the sofa, the space heater, the ottoman, the tub, that stupid conch shell, the minibar, the potted aloe, the last of the luggage set, and a stuffed elk’s head. In a frenzy to the sidewalls, champing at the rebar like marrow, he shoveled handfuls of dirt into his mouth, sloshing the slurry for hints of cinnamon and chocolatey notes, and then gobbled himself up out of the hole to the surface. He snatched the coffee tin from the houseless front porch and ate the cigarette butts inside, like the grime caked up under untrimmed nails. In the driveway, licking on all fours for splinters like nutmeg, he halted at the oil stain her car had left behind. He mouthed the licorice blot and moaned through his overactive tongue until there was just wet, clean concrete and the scuffs where most of his remaining teeth wore down to nubs and broke.

He wanted to continue down the block and around the neighborhood, through backyards devouring patios and gazebos and slack trampolines, drinking up pools full of leaves; further past the intersection to the park, across playgrounds and bike hills to the hidden spots in the reeds where they’d sat by the pond watching ducks; up the foothills to where the rocks were formed in such a way that couples seemed held like mice inside of cupped hands; then on to work, and to the shelter where the pets came from, and to the pre-schools they were considering. He didn’t budge.

He shoved his fist into his mouth past the wrist, then jammed in his forearm up to the elbow, and unsocketed his shoulder so he could get to his torso without biting off his own arm. He made it to the edge of his clavicle and gagged. His eyes grew serious. He clamped down with his gums and tugged. His ribs crumbled like drywall, and his spine and pelvis melted like tar under the sun. He collapsed onto the lawn in a heap. Another jerk of the head and his shins stretched like rubber bands, then snapped. His arms and legs retracted like roller shades into his lumpen pouch of a body. His jaw clicked as it worked in circular motions; steady gnashing, soggy breaths, slurping. Soon he was just a head on the grass gulping on the base of his distended neck like a snake that’s swallowed its own tail.

What was left deflated, like a soufflé.

Photo Cred:
Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels