The Hungry (A Short Story)

I closed the window and there over the picture of a mountain range was a photograph of an emaciated African girl. The Pop Up read, “Have you fed anyone lately? YOU CAN SAVE THE HUNGRY! Click HERE to find out how!” A representative from the Special Olympics had called our house asking for a donation and just last week my husband and I put a check in the mail for twenty-five dollars; I never liked doing the payments over the phone. I felt very sorry for any starving child, but my instinct told me that the little girl in that photo was dead already because the picture had been taken fifteen years ago (at least!). Then I hated the makers of that Pop Up a little, because I all I’d done since 9:30 was imagine different ways of being killed in common circumstances. Getting hit by a gorgeous modell and flipped into the air on my lunch break. An elevator cable snaps; crunch. The entire building catches on fire and I’d choke on the fumes like everyone else.

I started to feel bad about not appreciating my life. I put an away message up on instant messenger and headed for the restroom. The two other offices on our floor were full of women. Consequently, the ladies room rarely provided the kind of sanctuary some of us need and expect. Typically, the space was bustling with whispers and laughter and a twenty-year old smoking a menthol cigarette in the handicapped stall. I peeked in and a stale gust of cigarette stench snuck out. I kept going, rounded the corner, and exited into the stairwell.

Thankfully, there were only three women working on the entire 11th floor. I slipped out of the stairwell and sped like a dart down the empty hall. I unlocked the knob with my key. The ladies room greeted me with a safe odorless silence. I closed the stall door, pulled a sanitary square of tissue paper from the dispenser, and placed it on the seat. I sat and dragged my panties to my calves, closed my eyes, and felt my palms burry into my sockets. I exhaled and my skirt cinched around my waist. A wave of pain twisted through my abdominals; I arched to make it stop. My chest began to rattle like a lawnmower. I let out a whimper and a river of hot pee shot into the toilet.

I stayed there and cried for five minutes. I released control of my mind and it steered my heart through a lifetime’s encyclopedia of hurts. My 3rd grade teacher singling me out, a bully on the bus sneering at me, a woman behind the make-up counter tisk-tisking at my complexion, the blissful mother in the Hamburger Helper commercial, my ex boyfriend dropping me off three blocks from my apartment and rolling down the window to say he’d been cheating on me, my husband waiting at home in front of the TV, my three beautiful nieces and my perfect sister, the little African girl crying on a rock, a group of elated retarded children breaking the ribbon at the end of a run, the pretty young receptionist chatting with my boss, and the stack of To Do lists pushed inside my purse.
One of my gal pals in the office popped me up on AIM when I got back.

Everything OK?

Sure, everything’s fine.

Good :)

But nobody really cared. I figured that out. I’d caught my husband on the kitchen phone comparing notes with his mother. If I talked to a co-worker my sad life would be the topic of discussions on lunch break or at happy hour and then again at home with their spouses, roommates, or significant others. I read a poem in high school about how people have to suffer alone. What bothered me about my suffering was that it wasn’t over anything abnormal; I just always felt a little sad. Sure, at times I could forget it, like at birthday parties or admiring jewelry in the mall. Or on Holidays or when the choir harmonized at church, or when Rachel Ray took another bite of one of her savory appetizers without gaining even an ounce. It was the kind of thing nobody talked about. The little African girl was still staring at me. I closed the IM from my gal pal and clicked on her sad little face. The hourglass came up and after a second a webpage with naked girls inserting giant cocks into their mouths took over my screen. I hit the close button before anyone saw it.