I walked down the hall and there was a tray of scant leftovers from the breakfast which the institute provided to some photographers who were doing a shoot here today. The black plastic platter was littered with crumbs and a half-cut miniature muffin over an oil-soaked paper doily. A pitcher stood off to the right with the dregs of orange juice, and next to it were two coffee carafes and a stack of plastic handle mugs. Then there was this smallish bowl with single serve packages of jelly and cream cheese. I thought about taking one of the cream cheese tins into my office and scooping it out with a disposable knife – eating it alone, without bread or anything. Pure cream, on top of the cigarette I just smoked. If the cigarette wasn’t enough, I was about to trowel thick milk fat down my throat which would in a few minutes, meet up in my blood stream with the gazillion chemicals from the Camel Light, embracing like two long lost Mafioso’s. There the combination would decide what direction to take, perhaps directly to some prime artery only a few years or months from clogging, or maybe to my brain where the now freshly stimulated blood would surge right to an insipient aneurism, knocking me dead right there in a dusty sunbeam. They’d find me slumped over, the right-hand clutching my temple, a stain of feces soaking into the cloth seat, and my pale face with a look of total and utter surprise in my eyes.
I decided to cram a stale slice of Big Red gum into my mouth instead.
