Did you leave it for me to find? A trophy of your successful hunt through our bare pantry. Left for me to marvel at your ability to fend for yourself. Its jagged lid, torn away by the ancient ten cent can opener you bought at a garage sale trying to save money, propped up by a crooked sliver you decided wasn’t worth the manual labor to remove.
The spoon is where you left it too, the bowl half-buried in oil-soaked remains, the bent handle jutting out almost parallel to our marbled Formica counter, another cheap garage sale find. Why didn’t you finish it? I had made rice. Then again, I like tuna on hot rice. Not you.
You could have put the whole can in the fridge like you’ve done before. The smell permeating the shells of eggs, the sides of condiments, the carton of milk so much so that I had to clean the entire thing on the one night I was free, wishing I was on a beach back home with no worries or cares.
Now, the smell blankets our small kitchen with no windows to open as I dump what’s left into the over-filled trashcan you haven’t emptied yet. I wash it out, bending and straightening the lid to pop it off, as you knew I would, placing the split pieces on the counter to dry.
Melissa Llanes Brownlee is a native Hawaiian writer, living in Japan. She received her MFA from UNLV and has fiction published and forthcoming in The Citron Review, Waxwing, Milk Candy Review, Claw & Blossom, Bending Genres, The Lumiere Review, (mac)ro(mic), and elsewhere. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at http://www.melissallanesbrownlee.com
The Cabinet of Heed 