Poison

"I simply can not do this any longer!" Victor Bibbins declared out loud, addressing the giant poster of Mr. Bean pinned to the wall behind the tarantula cage. "Enough is enough!" And with that sentiment made physical, committed to spoken word, he found the determination to lower his quivering bulk down into the ergonomic chair in front of his computer, and then he began to type her an email.

"Dear Tricia," he typed into the body portion of this new composition, "As I am sure you know, I am no longer satisfied with the parameters of our current relationship as it stands now, and"...

He paused there a moment and re-read what he just typed. Victor was not entirely happy with the proximity of the 'know' and the 'no', he felt it created a disturbance in the flow of his words. The cadence was all off. He stared at the computer screen, his tiny lips pursed as if he tasted something unpleasant. After a brief deliberation he skillfully used his backspace and delete keys, and replaced the word 'know' with the words 'are aware'. He read this back to himself once, twice, three times, enjoying it a little bit more with each recital. He was feeling very pleased with himself and thought that he may reward himself with a treat. So, with some effort and several creaks, he rose from his chair and made his way into the kitchen.

Ignoring the many inspirational post-its fixed to the outside of the refrigerator, post-its reminding himself that food should be used in moderation only, post-its telling him to be strong, post-its designed to nurture success and positive thinking, he pulled the refrigerator door wide open, all the little yellow sticky notes ruffling momentarily from this action like the feathers on a waking bird.

Victor's expectant face was all aglow from the jaundiced bulb within the cooler. He stood there with the door open, quickly but silently making an inventory using only his shifty beady eyes. There were many reused clear plastic produce bags laying about on top of each other in no discernible order, as are bodies hastily thrown to a mass grave in a war zone, the contents of all a mystery as each and every one was obscured with a thick fog from inside, and not cinched tight enough to assume the shape of the contents within. This meant that each bag would have to be picked up, fondled, and presented to the nose to determine what bounty (or pitfall!) may be encountered there. He could think of no food that he had consumed in the recent past that was worth that sort of an effort at this time. In fact, he was vaguely aware that he almost never ate his leftovers, that if he truly delighted in any given meal, he would eat it down in its entirety, in one sitting, regardless of portion size. He was also vaguely aware that by the time a person has to wonder about leftovers, it is too late to salvage them. Even if a sense of potential guilt from being wasteful were to prevent you from throwing the item away at that exact moment, wondering to yourself 'Is this fresh any longer?' is tantamount to an indictment of inedibility, and that particular foodstuff has crossed a particular line in your mind, and once this line has been crossed, the concept of savoriness will never return to that particular morsel ever again, and it may as well be scuttled immediately as it rests unaware, before it is forgotten and allowed to linger on, befouling everything it comes in close proximity to with its own ugly and unkind revenge, like some spiteful and disgruntled ex-employee or lover.

NO. What Victor wanted was NEW FOOD, something easy yet calorie-packed in order to keep his energy up at the computer during this current, emotionally draining, task at hand. His overactive eyeballs scanned again and again, back and forth like a pair of windshield wipers during a snowstorm, looking for brightly colored cardboard or plastic containers, something not-necessarily-organic, something that had not been opened already.