Into the poorly lit kitchen I go. Right into the trash heap, that's right. Senseless, trying to keep these counters clean from grape jelly and mayonnaise. And of course, the skillet is dirty. It's always dirty. Sometimes I think my roommates crouch in the darkness of the pantry, sauces at the ready; and as soon as I clean the skillet and go on my way, they spring into action: dumping, frying, and caking as much nastiness onto the pan as is humanly possible. I think they just want to make me feel hopelessly and utterly defeated. And I do. I feel defeated by entropy.
So I clean the pan, feeling a great existential weight resting on my shoulders. The work will always be there. For me. For those who come after me. We're all Sisyphus, after all - the collection of us, that is. Humanity.
The pan is clean, so I grab the egg carton from the refrigerator. I just despise that word: refrigerator. Nothing graceful or pleasing about that word. I wish we could call it something else. Even fridge sounds ugly. Oh great, I'm missing a few. I guess I'm their maid and their grocer. Now that's a pretty cool word: grocer.
I like the sound the egg makes when it hits the hot pan. Somehow destructive and constructive at the same time. I could just watch the egg sizzle all day, except of course it would eventually burn to a crisp. That would be no fun. I'm always afraid that the spatula is going to scrape some of the pan and that I'll ingest some kind of metal or metal coating with my meal.
I go into the living room, sit down on the couch, and stare into my creation: a big, steaming slab of egg. That's what it is: a slab. A slippery, white, slab of not quite an embryo. Eck. Maybe it will seem appetizing if I put some Tabasco on it. It won't smell so much like an embryo, anyway. Maybe a little black pepper, too.
Ah hell, what's the use? It's unappetizing. All food is unappetizing nowadays. I'm an angry person. Angry at my roommates, at my house. Angry at eggs.
Damn you, Sisyphus. Damn you.
I guess he already is. I guess we all are.
So I clean the pan, feeling a great existential weight resting on my shoulders. The work will always be there. For me. For those who come after me. We're all Sisyphus, after all - the collection of us, that is. Humanity.
The pan is clean, so I grab the egg carton from the refrigerator. I just despise that word: refrigerator. Nothing graceful or pleasing about that word. I wish we could call it something else. Even fridge sounds ugly. Oh great, I'm missing a few. I guess I'm their maid and their grocer. Now that's a pretty cool word: grocer.
I like the sound the egg makes when it hits the hot pan. Somehow destructive and constructive at the same time. I could just watch the egg sizzle all day, except of course it would eventually burn to a crisp. That would be no fun. I'm always afraid that the spatula is going to scrape some of the pan and that I'll ingest some kind of metal or metal coating with my meal.
I go into the living room, sit down on the couch, and stare into my creation: a big, steaming slab of egg. That's what it is: a slab. A slippery, white, slab of not quite an embryo. Eck. Maybe it will seem appetizing if I put some Tabasco on it. It won't smell so much like an embryo, anyway. Maybe a little black pepper, too.
Ah hell, what's the use? It's unappetizing. All food is unappetizing nowadays. I'm an angry person. Angry at my roommates, at my house. Angry at eggs.
Damn you, Sisyphus. Damn you.
I guess he already is. I guess we all are.
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