Spaghetti

I was alone with a hunger rattling my ribs. It was afternoon, they left me alone, no cars in the lot, not even my own. I stepped outside my door into the pale gray light, the dead grass whimpering beneath cigarette butts and stray heaps of snow.1

I opened a neighbor's door. It is silent, the dog looks up at me from the floor and grins, brings me a bone. It is dark in there, there is only the glow from the digital clock, bright red lines that scream fat zeros – anticipation, patience, waiting for someone to set it.2

I stepped into the kitchen doorway. Garlic, basil, the acidity of tomato, a hint of something richer within. The smell bit at the back of my throat and in my nose, had led me from hiding into the yellow light: a hungry mouse creeping toward the trap, senses urging step after step with primal urgency, reckless but timid.3

The open pot loomed in front of him like a bursting geyser. Boiling pasta streamed over the brim, splashing over his arms and slithering like fiery snakes down his skin. I watched as he stirred like a metalsmith above a cauldron, steam swirling around his hulking shoulders, thick water thrashing upward like molten steel.4

Once strained he heaved a smaller pot to pour the red sauce upon my helping. Eat, he told me, and it tasted good. Starving, my mouth could not contain my stomach.5

Then he began to smile, peering into my bowl, showing his crooked teeth that stuck sharply from cracked lips. And he reached for me. His hand, gigantic, rough as granite, set forefinger and thumb along my jawline, for something had fallen between my teeth. It crumbled between my molars, its insides like a broken pill, the consistency of something decayed. The scum off of moldy bread. The chunks broke into powder on my teeth, sludge upon my tongue. The sour taste left my mouth dry, teeth swathed in sticky rubber.6

His hand held fast along my jaw until the bowl was empty, nothing but streaks from pasta spread like empty veins, exhausted. He smirked, stared at me, and without a word slopped another serving in my bowl.