GetLit is a semimonthly series featuring works of fiction and creative nonfiction submitted by New School students. Each month has two opportunities to submit: an open call and a themed call. To submit your work or find more information, please visit GetLit’s submissions form.
This month’s open-call fiction selection is “He Who Has Taken Food” by Jessica Hakim.
Jessica Hakim (she/her) is a fourth-year literary studies major at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, who enjoys writing comedy, plays, and poetry.
He took me out of the refrigerator around 10:45 PM. It had been about a day since I had seen him eat from the skewers next to mine, whisper his after eating du’a, and put me back in the fridge, untouched; a narrow escape. There wasn’t much company to be had in the refrigerator except for some milk, which I saw him use in his coffee three times that day, another container or two of leftovers belonging to someone else in the house, and a stick of butter, among others. Upon my removal from the refrigerator, he put me on a paper towel and into the microwave. While the sensation was unpleasant, it was still nothing compared to first being cooked. Then he brought me into the other room, where I saw there was another person present.
She sat on her shins in a kind of pained child’s pose, looking intently at a laptop screen, though not typing or clicking on anything. Her hair was up in a knot and she looked worn out, perhaps from the sun. Without a word, he set me down next to her, and continued on to the other side of the bed, putting his headphones on and leaning back against the pillows.
The energy in the room (though it was significantly less than it had been the night before, when he was alone) was oppressive, and I could only imagine what I’d just been brought into the middle of. If I was going to be eaten, I thought, at least it could be by her, as her mouth was certainly prettier than his, but I could see there wasn’t much chance of that as she glared up at him through the tears on her eyelashes. A look that said, “What the fuck is this?”
They stared at each other for ten seconds or so before going back to their respective, brooding activities. She continued crying, he not saying anything or even looking at her. After what felt to me like an eternity, which was maybe a total of ten to fifteen minutes, their eyes met again, hers shooting daggers.
“Is this your version of an apology?”
He stared blankly at her for some time. Then, only, “Are you really not going to eat it?”
Her face contorted once more into tears. “I can’t.”
He took a deep inhale, raised his eyebrows, and reached over her, picking me up and unwrapping the paper towel. As his teeth tore away at the first part of me, the tears streamed down her pale cheeks and into the curve between her lips. Then, his phone began to ring. He picked up and alternated speaking and chewing, or doing the two nauseatingly and simultaneously. I had never heard this language, and I wondered if he was speaking about her. I knew she wondered too.
Finally, I met my fate. This time, there was no prayer.