One Way It Could End

Four oysters on the table and three of us. We could slice the fourth in thirds but oyster essence relies on the whole briny mess, mignonette, horseradish, tipped back in one go, so Mel gets the fourth because we’re at their place. Or Jak because he brought them, or me because we all know I like them best. Or Jak is disqualified for bringing four oysters to three people and the host gets it as a courtesy. Or the host gives it to me as a courtesy because Jak is disqualified. Or I give it up (though I love oysters) to people who only like them for murky reasons, like politeness, only it isn’t oysters on the table, it’s teeth. Four teeth and three of us. With oysters, teeth don’t matter much; we could just leave them there leering, but what if the next course is steak or raw carrots? Do we gamble on what’s coming? Mel knows the menu and takes a tooth so I take a tooth and Jak takes a tooth and we’re back where we started, but worse because I can’t claim to like teeth more than Mel or Jak and we can’t break a tooth in three — that’s more absurd than the oyster. So there’s just one bonus tooth between the bread and water glasses and six eyes staring at it and each other. Jak’s chair scrapes back like he’s about to do something, only it isn’t a tooth on the table but years. Four of them, fleshy and green as a sprout at one end, withered at the other, four years for three people and Mel leaps up as Jak hurls a year byMel’s ear. Mel kicks the year across the room, where it stamps the muzzle of a startled cat like frost, but before Mel can cry ‘Muffin!’ Jak hurls another year in Mel’s lap, where it melts like hope, and I’m under the table engaged in a death glare with the third year, instructing it to fade into the floor because who cares how old the floor is in a situation like this? Amid the standoff, Mel uses a fork to fling the final year into Jak’s eye and then there’s nothing on the table but air. It’s hard to describe the desperation when we realize air is not the same as emptiness, this air is required to breathe and there’s four packs of it and three of us. In all the shouting, we see Mel with two gleaming, new teeth. So that’s what happened there, but air is air and we’re running out of it quickly. There’s one bundle for all of us, but who knows how long it will last and if it runs out, two of us die while the third hangs on longer and by then — who knows? — something else might be on the table and Jak is mumbling about the sacrifice of one so two can live but Jak can’t talk and do at the same time so Mel snatches the air packs from under his gusty justifications, but there’s only two packs because I’m under the table again. This time with Muffin and we’re sharing one pack, because how much air can a cat take and Muffin didn’t ask to die like this, and another pack is tucked under my shirt and Mel and Jak are crashing all over the table fighting, a big waste of breath if you ask me and Muffin, but then it’s not air on the table, it’s a meat pie. Cut perfectly and precisely in three. “Ah, so that’s the next course,” we say and sit down to eat.