Dinner Part 3

I wrote my heading to set myself up to shed light on my emotional state. A state that I was so absorbed into, I didn't hear the knock on the door.

The door inched open, and I looked up to see Annie with a plate of food in hand.

"I was calling you to let you know dinner was ready, but I guess you didn't hear me," Annie said.

I said, "Oh no, I was just writing in my journal."

"Oh." she shook her head. "You hungry?" She motioned to the food.

She did not know. "Starving," I replied with a smile. I happily accepted the food.

She returned a smile, but it lacked levity. I felt this urge to say something, but she quickly nodded her head at me and turned to leave.

"Thanks," I blurted out.

She stopped, but never turned around. I watched her back as it seemed to be still as stone and yet I detected some measure of shaking on her part.

At the door, with her back to me, I heard her holding back tears. I said, "Annie… I really appreciate the time we had today."

Annie relaxed her shoulders and moved her head in tandem with her rocky turn to face me. Her eyes stared and seemed to cut right through me. The moistness lingered under the bloom of those eyelids and glistened in the flare of the lantern's light.

Nothing was said. I was not sure if she was mad at me or had I stepped on her heart in a huge way. It felt debilitating to go through those passing moments where it felt like anything you said became deadwood on exit out of your mouth.

It never fully and truly alleviated any pain. It only paused it for a while.

"Remember when we used to play tricks on mommy and daddy?" she asked.

I didn't really remember much of those first few years of my life. Now and then I got flashbacks from that time, but it was only fragments which were also something that saddened me since I barely remembered the faces of my parents.

I really only had Annie's memories to rely on to bring them to life in my mind. "No. But please tell me," I said. She understood. This was something of a routine with us where she would tell me stories about when we were younger and when our parents were alive.

I ate, she spoke, laughing and smiling with the memories. I laughed with pieces of memory and my imagination that filled in the blanks.

It was fun to hear about them and I wished I had gotten to know them. The elders always talked about how close our ancestors were to us in the living world. Maybe, just maybe, I could meet them when I passed away.

That would have been neat. We sat in that room for hours talking until Annie jumped up.

"Oh, I forgot to wake Joel up for dinner!" She said with urgency.

I laughed. "Wait, Can I wake him up? Pretty, pretty please?"

She looked at me like I was crazy, wondering why in the world I was so excited to wake him up. "Sure, yeah. Go for it. Don't tell him I fed you first though"

"Yup!" I quickly returned to where Joel was snoring away and snuck up to his ear on my tiptoes. My sister watched me grinning at the way I scrunched up my shoulders and approached him like a robber.

As soon as I was really close, I yelled, "Dinner's ready!" This huge man jumped up as if there was a fire at his feet. My sister burst out laughing and I ran to her arms, grinning with her.

"For the love of all that is good!" Joel shouted, rubbing at his ear as if it was still loud and he was trying to shake the noise out.

We all made our way to the table and Joel was a happy man as he sat down to eat. The man had a huge smile on his face. It was hilarious. Annie and I watched him. He looked at us in confusion. "What am I? Your entertainment? Aren't you going to eat?"

"Nah, we're not hungry."

"Oh okay," he said as he shoveled the food into his pot of a mouth and swallowed it into the bottom of a stomach, where it must have disappeared into thin air since he ate like he hadn't eaten in forever. He had not looked up once. Silently, he was in his devouring of the food.

Well, the food had taken a while to be ready with me helping out, so I guessed he was really starving. I made off to go to my room when Annie said, "Nils helped me to prepare dinner".

I turned around. Joel looked up. "Yeah? Good job. Next time you can help me get the meat, then…" he made a cut of his eyes and looked back down at his plate before he resumed eating. I guessed he remembered the limitations of my time.

Joel was chewing when looked back up at Annie apologetically and didn't make eye contact with me. I returned to my room, not sure what to say at that moment.

There was not much I could have said, really. I was going to die. There was not much I could have done other than enjoy the time I had now.