Yvette had ordered a banana smoothie and banana bread and commented on how she might turn into a banana with a breakfast like that. He wished he could tell her not to say such things because they were inane and embarrassing, and didn't she know he might unravel her hair, peel her skin back like a troublesome orange? His eyes travelled the surface of her arm and acknowledged the fresh bruises. He wanted to reach over and press them hard to see if she would fall apart, scoop her flesh like soggy pudding, an arm full of hemorrhaging fruit. He put his hands deep in his pockets and played with the loose stitches at the bottom, fondling the side of his thighs instead. It wasn't until the giant fruit asked him why he wasn't eating that he took them out again and wiped his sweat down his jeans. Greg wondered if that came under the definition of irony, but thought he had better shovel down a few forks of substance before his thoughts looked suspicious.
...He was eating the essence of the chicken, the fucking formula for their existence. He wondered if he would feel more inclined to climb the human pecking order at work. Reproduce. Scratch crumbs from the floor. He liked that one the most, unable to to cover the smile that had now spread across his face like the Cheshire Cat...You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.
Yvette is staring at him across the table. Her big deer eyes wet with tears all the time, moist dewdrops at the end of her lashes. Yvette is staring. Her pregnant eyes are dying to burst out their salty placenta all over the cutlery, but he can't have that. Not at breakfast. Not here, like this. Not with Yvette. It would end him. Fork in egg paste, Fork Fork Fork, Egg Egg Egg, Repeat. His once wobbly mountain had turned into yellow smear and he yearned to dip his fingers into the goo and wipe it over his cheeks. He would be the the anointed yolk warrior, champion of breakfast, god of embryos, KING OF TOAST! He eats the decorative sprig of parsley instead of placing it on his head. Its a welcoming mix of heady tang and sickly sweet.
He hates this cafe- this place with its grey carpet and white walls and pictures of spots on the wall that are grey. They remind me him of Yvette, so small, so grey, so boring. The eggs are steaming inside his body like last weeks forgotten garbage. The gas is rising, painting the inside of his throat a putrid green. It makes him gag. He knows the smell in his nose is floor disinfectant but he knows it's not real. The smell lingers anyway, an imaginary shadow reminding him where he is even when his eyes are closed. He hates this place. He hates it even more than he hates himself.
The walls begin to resemble fluid, small ripples on an unmade mattress, slick wet bedsheets. The kind he used to pull off his bed when he was seven years old and was desperate to hide the evidence from his father. The memory makes him cringe. His stomach feels like rust, there is something crunching on the inside, scraping together like clustered terra cotta pots. The walls are grey. The walls are wet. The walls are bedsheets. The piss covered walls are closing in around his eggs, his plate, his split ended moffet. You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.
He takes a few breaths in.
The walls recede, slipping back into the solid. The walls never moved. The walls are walls, and nothing more. He catches a glimpse of his smile in his butter knife and wonders why his Nana's wedding china is in his mouth. None of that seemed to matter now, as he realised the waiter had forgotten the mushrooms- and acid and eggs isn't complete without mushrooms.He thought he should write that down, but he didn't.
