[Calann]: 135.Short stories.Food trouble

Cursing loudly, using all the expletives she could think of in all the languages she knew, which amounted to quite a many, Jennifer Hay opened the door to her apartment while juggling with luggage, two weeks' mail and the carrying basket of her cat, who was currently stating his vehement opinion of her long absence and his annoyance at being locked up in such an indignant way. Every single Christmas it was the same thing, she was practically forced to go home all the way to the other side of the country as soon as holidays started and spend a fortnight with assorted relatives, half of whom she barely knew. Now, as New Year's Eve had rolled about and passed by, she was finally freed of family obligations up until her mother's birthday in late February. As per tradition, the leftovers from the Christmas meal had been divided more or less equally between the participating branches of the Hay clan. How they still managed to have leftovers more than a week after the actual holiday remained a mystery to Jennifer, but nevertheless she found herself stocking her fridge with containers of ham and turkey and casserole and lutefisk, among other things. The salad of pickled herring and vegetables she threw away with a look of disgust on her face; she'd never liked that stuff.

After making sure there were no more boxes of food hidden in her luggage, she let out the cat, who immediately made a beeline for his basket in the corner of her bedroom.

"You fat, lazy bastard," Jennifer muttered, the corners of her lips twitching in a minute smile. She then followed suit, dragging her huge suitcase and sports bag-turned-dumping ground for presents onto her bed and proceeded to start on the oh-so-dreadful task of unpacking. Being too tired to do it properly, she stuffed all her clothes to the closet, except for the dirty ones, which she haphazardly tossed into the steadily growing pile on the bathroom floor. She eyed the bag containing the presents and decided they could very well wait to the next day. Or the next one. Or the next. Who knew. She dug up the boxes of chocolate from among the multitude of other items in the bag and returned to the kitchenette. It was time for food, and then, sleep. Lectures at the university would start in another two days, and she needed her rest.



After a week, during which she had had to make a detour to the grocery store upon discovering she was running out of milk and bread and other such essentials, Jennifer still had multiple containers of ham and turkey and casserole in her fridge. She was beginning to be fairly sure they reproduced among themselves during the night, as it seemed that there was always more than she thought there should be. The lutefisk, at least, had seen its end in the merciless jaws of Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan Ibn Al-Abbas Ibn Rashid Ibn Hamad, Eben for short. The red mackerel tabby cat had, for some reason completely and utterly inexplicable, developed a fancy for the dish. Jennifer of course had no complaints to this; she was glad to be rid of even one of the types of food forced upon her. This, however, did not change the fact that the ham was endless. And the turkey, and the casserole. And Eben refused to touch those, which put his mistress in a situation where she began to get totally fed up of Christmas food to last a lifetime.

Shaking her head in frustrated resignation, she slammed the fridge door shut with her hip, suddenly not feeling very hungry anymore. She prepared a turkey sandwich and grabbed the last box of chocolates from the counter, then headed for the bedroom. Settling comfortably on the bed, she proceeded to spend the evening by gorging on chocolate and reading the book she'd bought on her way home, due to a friend's recommendation; Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This was the first time she picked up on the urban fantasy genre, and it would most certainly be an interesting experience.

After a good long while, Jennifer looked up from the book and noticed the time. It was nearly midnight, and she ought to have gone to bed an hour ago. Sighing, she put the novel aside, ate the last of the chocolate, and changed into her night gown. There would be important lectures the next day, and she needed to be fully awake.

"Good night, Eben," she whispered into the general direction of the cat's basket, switched the lights off, and went to sleep.



The following morning, Jennifer woke up to the sensation of a rough tongue swiping her cheek. Mumbling unintelligibly, she shooed the cat away and dragged herself up from the bed. A glance at the alarm clock told her that it was seven in the morning and that she now had an hour and a half to deliver herself to school. Without further ado, she made her way into the kitchenette, disregarding the extra doors on her apartment walls as optical illusions and the way Eben's meows suddenly made perfect sense to her as a sign of having lived with him long enough to understand him, and opened the fridge door. Then she blinked. Slammed the door shut, counted to ten, and opened it again.

The containers holding the remnants of the ham, the turkey, and the casserole were open, their contents, completely oblivious of the utterly baffled young woman staring so hard she felt her eyeballs were about to bulge out of their sockets, apparently holding some sort of party. Giggling and cheerful shouting made its way to Jennifer's ears. Then, when one of the slices of ham noticed her, they all threw a greeting her way before continuing on the bouncing around and staining the inside of the fridge. This jolted her out of her stupor, and she hurriedly closed the door.

"Okay, I'll just buy something from the café. I was getting tired of eating that crap anyways. Yeah."

Finishing her morning chores in record time, Jennifer was out of the apartment twenty minutes after initially waking up. She greeted the neighbour she saw on the way downstairs, but was seemingly ignored. Slightly hurt by this, she proceeded to make her way to the university on a remarkably ill mood.

"There is no one by the name of Jennifer Hay listed on this course, or in this university, for that matter. Please remove yourself from here immediately."

Such were the words that she would never in her worst nightmares have imagined, yet there they were, flung at her face in a nearly careless fashion. Feeling numb, she traveled the relatively short distance back home that had never before seemed so long. In entering the apartment she needed to jump back from the door as pieces of potato and carrot came flying at her. She stared, flabbergasted, her mouth gaping open, as she took in the sight of her apartment being stained with food... by the food itself. Eben came out from the bedroom, reproach radiating off it in waves.

"You should have eaten them sooner. Look at this. They've soiled my fur, too!"

Jennifer abruptly sat down on the floor and began to giggle like mad. Suddenly, her feet and her stomach and her head ached as if she would explode, and she curled up in the fetus position, whimpering. Dark spots danced before her eyes...



... and she sat bolt upright in her bed, gasping, bathed in cold sweat. She wiped her forehead with a shivering hand while looking around. It was fairly dark, but as far as she could see, it was normal. It was quiet. Jennifer sighed, a long, stuttering sigh, with nervous laughter mixed into it.

"I'm never eating chocolate right before bedtime again. Ever. Or reading fantasy books, for that matter. That was just... too bloody weird!"

She shuddered and rubbed a hand over her face, swinging her feet to the floor. Blearily peeking at the alarm clock in the dim room, she groaned as she realised it was only 5 a.m. After contemplating briefly whether she ought to go back to sleep, she reluctantly discarded the idea and stood up. For once having woken up early, she might as well take advantage of it and not be in a terrible hurry come time to leave for school.

Trekking the small distance from her bedroom to the kitchenette, Jennifer proceeded to examine the contents of the fridge. Everything seemed normal enough... up until a slice of ham blinked at her.

"Oh, bloody hell."