Le Gourmet (The Greedy Child)

I feel tingly in my hands and toes to think of tiptoeing down the hallway, down the stairs, into the kitchen for the fridge. Rarely do I undertake such a thrilling journey, knowing there is the darkness and the creaking floors and perhaps I will happen upon mice meeting up in three’s. I wouldn’t want to scatter them. If I’m possessed of an image of a piece of foodstuff in the fridge, shining and twinkling like a prize on the game show of my night hunger, if I’m very sure it’s there and no preparation at all is necessary, then I may venture from my sleepy resting place.

There’s the fridge, it hums and gleams. And, when I open it light shines forth into the darkness. It’s like alive that towering box, the cold giant in my house. Everything inside is still. It doesn’t move the whole time it’s entombed within. I reach in and my hand shakes a little from the anticipation of having visualized my journey so distinctly prior to having taken it. The fullness, both bodily and in the cavern of my chest, from the perfectly delivered dream, for one moment, pulls me down through the wooden floors, down through the foundation to the earthy underbelly of the house, as though I’ve roots of a deep dark oak. Then, I feel alarm.

I should not be here! And, I scurry back upstairs, with only my disordered thoughts chasing me, like bats just passing through and naught to do with me at all.

It must be said, I’ve cried over hunger more than once. I’m one of those poor devils. Sometimes I say, when I’d see my canine counterparts approaching feeding in their distinct and disparate ways, that the alpha is just the hungrier dog. When my hunger concocts some delectable plan, it’s hard to set me off my course. Though, since my son has inherited this hell-bent appetite, I’ve made accommodations for him, but not without tears. I know what he suffers under!

I’ve convinced late night carry-outs to make one last delivery of warm pita bread and hummus just for me, to fall asleep and find their plaintive calls on my answering machine the next morning. I won’t go on, but some of you may understand.

Inspired by the WordPress Daily Post for October 30, “Trio No. 3.” The featured image is “Le Gourmet (the Greedy Child)” by Pablo Picasso painted in 1901. This work by Picasso is in the public domain.