Most Important Meal of the Day

He filled the green bowl with half a cup of oatmeal, then measured out the water and put it in small saucepan to boil.  It was easier to do it this way, less likely for flakes of oatmeal to stick in the cup afterwards.  He used the time to tape the tip of his left thumb back into place.  It had fallen off.  Right at the joint, the knuckle.  The tape job didn’t turn out so well because the thumb wasn’t connected by any tendons or ligaments anymore, and it didn’t bend.  The grubby white roll of medical tape wrapped around the thumb a few times, then across his palm, and finished off tight around his wrist.  Hopefully this would keep the whole damn thing from falling off completely, instead of just the thumb.  He thought the entire thumb felt loose, like pulling a drumstick out of his palm.  The whole procedure had been a little awkward at first, as his thumb kept slipping out of place, until it was aligned correctly and a few loops of tape were pulled tight.  He was in no way impeded by the ragged hole in the palm of his right hand.  He could blow a smoke ring through his hand, if he only smoked.

  “Oh shit” he muttered.  The water was at a rolling boil, most of it gone when he lifted the lid of the pan.  There was too little left for the oatmeal.  He carefully poured the dry oatmeal back into the box.  Raising his right hand to the kitchen window and stretching out his arm, the winter sunlight filtered through.  Sighing, he dropped his arm and placed both hands on the cold kitchen counter.  White formica, dappled with gray streaks, all of it faded by age.  His eyes flicked back and forth, between the tape holding his thumb stiffly together and the hole in his palm outlining the gray speckles of the counter.  The bones were a dull yellow, peeking through the folds of muscle.  The rest of his fingers were in sad shape, but not as bad as his thumb.  The decay spread to each digit, down the entire hand, and petered out unevenly just past both wrists, where his watch told him it was getting late. 

Work was a mortgage company, sitting on a hill above his apartment.  He walked around the chain link fence in his backyard, hopped over shallow, narrow stream, walked up the hill covered in scrubby pine trees, and went across an untended field to the back of the parking lot.  The stream was low this time of year, and there was no worry about picking up ticks from brushing against any evergreens.  One summer day he sat at his desk and picked off six ticks that were crawling around on his khakis, looking to feed.  The sun passed behind a smattering of clouds, and he shivered coming out between the last of the trees.  A heavy frost lay on the dead and brittle grass between the top of the hill and the building’s parking lot, except on the gently curving path he had carved into the earth by walking each and every morning.  No grass grew there, and its narrow definition was more clearly visible in the winter.  The wild stalks grew up past his waist during the year.  Past the mortgage company stood the rest of the buildings in the dingy industrial complex.  A garage that rarely seemed to be busy, a place that sold industrial size batteries, and a half built steel warehouse that would eventually store and sell golf carts.  Turning around, the hill fell away.  His gaze passed over his the old farmhouse where he rented the bottom floor, out to the highway that passed not twenty feet from his front door and small concrete patio.  Cars buzzed by, everyone busy and off to work.

            Manila folders piled on his desk, one after the other.  Loans due for dream homes in Florida, single family homes in Nebraska, cabins to wile away the retirement years in Montana.  Processed, checked over, and arriving via the magic of Fed-Ex in places far away.  Little chunks of flesh were unintentionally included with these packets of paper hopes and dreams.  Pieces of his hands had been starting to peel away for a while.  He sighed and smacked his red stapler with a partially closed fist, fastening another finished mortgage together.  His thumb wobbled and hung down from the knuckle with the force of the impact.  He needed to be a little more careful with the tape.  It was hard enough typing already.  He was already making plenty of mistakes, slowing down, and there was plenty of paperwork left.

            He walked out of his cubicle and across the office hallway, dropped the paperwork on his supervisor’s desk.  It needed further review and her final approval before getting shipped out.  Stopping for a moment, he looked past the desk and piles of folders, past the tan filing cabinet that never had anything in correct alphabetical order.  The office window looked out past the parking lot, onto the brown field that was slowly swaying in the cold breeze.  The trail was a little harder to define than this morning, perhaps because of the distance, or the wind pushing the half-dead stalks over the beaten ground.  Eyes slightly squinted, he followed the course of the path to the tree line, where it disappeared as the hill fell away. 

            The sun was just setting as he walked back to his apartment, and the steady wind made it feel even colder.  His breath leaked out of his mouth and spilled behind him as stared at the ground, careful not to make a misstep in the growing darkness.  The wild grass brushed against his legs gently.  After the summer, there were thin grass stains on the shins of all his khakis, evidence of the continuous journey between work and home.    A walk that never led anywhere, only the same place he started.  It was merely the transition between two places where time was spent.   The tips of the stalks would usually have tickled his fingertips, which swung gently at his sides.  In the fading light both hands were the same non-color as the dead grass.   The wind died away as he worked his way down the hill, sheltered by the surrounding pines.  He put his hands in his pockets more out of habit than any need to keep them warm, and shuffled his keys between the fingers of his right hand.  The cold, well worn keys and the green rubber shamrock keychain felt no different.  Down at the bottom of the hill, the stream whispered quietly.  Although the water was only several inches deep, the banks on each side were steep.  A jump across was just short enough to make and just long enough to slip backwards and end up with waterlogged shoes.  He took his eyes of the path, a few quick steps, and jumped.  The slope on the opposite side smacked against his feet, and he wrapped his right hand around a thin sapling to get a boost over the side.  A hard pull, a few more quick steps, and the majority of the rotten meat of his palm left hanging on the rough bark of the tree led him over the edge of the stream and on his way home, high and dry.  The gobbet of flesh swung in the breeze, dropped to the ground, nearly invisible in the twilight.  It lay in the curve of a tree root, and the wind pushed a few stray leaves over it.   

            The kitchen floor was covered in alternating red and white tiles, peeling up around the edges and spongy in a few spots.  He would have taken off his shoes, but the floor was cold.  The unfinished basement beneath had no insulation, and the washer and dryer were on top of two pallets, the wood graying with age and exposure.  In a soaking rainstorm, water would run across the basement floor and puddle in the low spots.   He walked over to the small refrigerator, the creaking of his footsteps temporarily drowning out the low hum of the fridge’s compressor.  The light inside blinked to life as he opened the door, illuminating a wedge shaped section of tile at his feet.  Dinner was leftovers, chicken and mashed potatoes from yesterday or the day before.  He took the covered plate back through the kitchen, stopping briefly to grab a fork, and sat down in the living room.  The tv flicked on, almost of its own accord, and he turned the volume down to where sound was only a vague suggestion.  The colors strobed against the dingy white wall behind him, in stark contrast to his large, misshapen shadow, solid and slow against the lightly dancing commercials.  His thumb was still loose, sliding a bit inside the tape and making holding the fork a little difficult as he speared the cold potatoes.  A chicken leg balanced in his opposite hand, he alternated between meat and vegetable, the tv reflected blankly in his eyes.

            The thin rough blankets were pulled up to his chin and tucked tightly underneath.  He lay, curled in a tight ball on his right side, and stared at the old clock radio that sat on his dresser.  The wind found the cracks in the window frame and swirled around the room.  A dull orange glow flared over everything, then faded into darkness, regular and endless.  A spotlight from the small country airport across the street helped to guide late night flights home, and sometimes the high reek of jet fuel seeped in to the bedroom, through the same cracks that the wind found. The wind and the light never changed, only the weak numbers from the clock.   When he stretched out his hand to shut off the shrill beep of the alarm, he noticed that his left thumb was gone.  The frayed tape still clung to his hand, but an empty loop mummified the shape of his thumb.  Stripping the bed of sheets and even looking underneath the sagging boxspring only emphasized the absence of his finger. 

            He slowly got dressed, wearing the same slightly stained khakis as the day before.  He skipped breakfast, and only stopped for a moment to stare at the trashcan in the kitchen, wondering if his thumb might be in there among the unfinished leftovers from dinner.  Then he headed out the door, down beside the chainlink fence, over the stream, and back up the hill towards the office complex.  The wind was still gentle, but very cold.  Despite the constant breeze, the clouds still covered almost every square inch of sky.  He did not look up, but focused on the trail beaten into submission by each passing day.  It died off at the edge of the parking lot, where a few of his co-worker’s cars scattered themselves around the asphalt, but his legs continued to the side door of the office, pulling him inside. 

            The side hallway, lined with low beige carpet and lit with fluorescent bulbs, bypassed the receptionist’s desk.  She would already be busy answering the phone, even at this early hour.  It led past the company kitchen, where someone was always fiddling with the dirty coffeemaker or getting a fossilized snack out of the archaic vending machine.  He preferred to eat at his desk.  Past the fax machine room, where paper spilled on the floor constantly, a stairway led to the second floor.  He followed the second floor hallway with the same beige carpet as it led back towards the parking lot and the trail outside that led back home.   One of the long fluorescents blinked and ticked above the closing department. 

            Back at his cubicle, he pushed aside his red stapler and dropped a notebook on top of the dingy, faux wood desktop.  Following the list in the notebook with the tip of his finger, he found the names of the loans that had to be finished.  The dull grey of his finger contrasted with the white paper, and he saw the fingernail was still attached. 

He reached out without looking, and grabbed the first folder on the cart that sat next to him.  The hastily scribbled name on top of the folder matched one on the list, and work began.  His attention flicked between computer screen and paperwork, and the few glances at keyboard showed the visible ligaments in his palm as they pulled and dropped his fingers slowly across the keyboard.  His right thumb compensated for the missing left, hitting the space bar occasionally.  The light from the screen copied itself into his unblinking eyes. 

            There were no loans left to type, and Fed-Ex would be arriving shortly to take the latest batch away.  He leaned back in his chair, gently scratching his head with both hands, then leaned forward quickly and brought his hands over his face, taking a deep breath.  His supervisor walked by the open door of the closing department, speaking with one of the loan officers.  Grabbing the last loan, he stepped across the hall and dropped it on her desk, along with another sliver of graying flesh from his palm.  He looked for a brief moment out the window, towards the field and the trail that led away.  Turning around, he went back to the closing department, took his jacket off the back of his chair and left his stapler as the lone sentinel, watching over the computer he neglected to turn off. 

            The wind had not cleared the sky of clouds.  Both seemed unchanging.  The sun was once again receding as he carefully picked his way down the trail.  His hands swung by his side, and he did not bother to put them in his pockets.  The lean and wild pines cut into the force of the wind as he started down the trail.  His feet moved along, stepping beside the rocks and over the holes in the trail.  His eyes turned to the left, and he turned into a small gap between two evergreens.  The outstretched branch of a pricker bush tore a hole in the side of his pants.  About twenty feet from the trail a tree had fallen over, roots pulled out of the ground.  The earth was slowly eating the entire tree as it decomposed.  He sat on the clear part of the trunk, between the wide fan of the roots and the first of the branches.  He looked at his boots, slightly muddy now, the small tear in the side of his grass stained khakis.  He looked at the trees surrounding him and the cover of grey clouds in the sky.  His jacket was not zipped all the way, and the chill breeze forced its way in, caressing his chest.  He held both hands against his temples, then slid them over his face, exhaling slowly.  His breath spilled out past out the bones in his palm.