Breakfast

Breakfast

Frank Howe had been awake for hours. He probably could have drawn his bedroom ceiling from memory. He had been staring at it so long that he was intimate with every crack, every cobweb, and every smudge of plaster. He hated the ceiling. It was still and unchanging—mocking him. "Look at that poor fat slob," it seemed to be saying, "he can't even roll his lard-ass out of bed." Frank had been steadily gaining weight ever since his wife of twelve years died in a car accident. A drunk driver in a semi-truck hit her head on. He took comfort in the knowledge that it was probably very quick for her—compared to how slowly he was killing himself, her death barely happened from a linear perspective. In the two years since the accident, he had put on an extra hundred pounds. It started simply enough. He hated alcohol, and drugs were out of the question with his job at the local courthouse. He simply ate. All of those sugars, carbs, and delicious fats kept him going when nothing else seemed to. He knew what he was doing to himself. Only four months after the accident and already the simple act of climbing the stairs left him panting heavily, and his bowel movements had become increasingly irregular. The food was killing him. His heart would probably go first, unless he finally worked up the courage to eat a bullet and be done with it already. He did want to die, but at the same time he knew it wasn't what his beloved Rebecca would have wanted. He'd tried so many times to control himself. Sometimes he wouldn't eat for days, but at the end of every fast, he gorged. He'd once tried vomiting his food back up after every binge, but he couldn't stand the feeling of it. He never could handle vomiting, even as a child.

He willed himself to sit up in the bed, if only to escape from that damned ceiling. Food is fuel for the body, isn't it? So why the hell didn't he have any energy in the morning? He climbed out of bed, already disgusted with himself—that was all it took to get his heart pumping fast. He considered dressing himself, but what was the point? It wasn't like he was going to have visitors or anything.

He kept finding excuses to avoid going downstairs. He shaved slowly, showered until the hot water ran out; he even briefly exercised on the treadmill. He did everything in his power to keep from facing the nightmare downstairs. It was the same every morning. He would go downstairs and enter the kitchen. There he would eat and eat and eat, trying to fill the hole that was left in him when the love of his life was ripped from the world. It wouldn't matter if he resisted—or if he had the willpower to eat healthily for a day, for a week, none of it mattered. He would break as he always did. The call could not be denied.

Sighing, Frank bowed to the inevitable and made his way downstairs. The air was filled with the delicious scents of breakfast. The strongest by far was that of crisp bacon. He entered the kitchen and observed the smorgasbord lain out before him. There were more dishes than most people could finish in one day, let alone one morning. Eggs, scrambled and over easy, bacon and sausage links piled onto a side plate, hash browns fried to golden brown perfection, heavily buttered toast with and without cinnamon, pancakes, waffles, French toast, and the most delicious coffee in the city.

Standing at the other end of the table was the one who prepared the feast. It stood on two legs and had two eyes, four limbs, and a nose, but that was where the similarities to the human animal ended. The creature was a sickly-pale shade of gray. Its skin was stretched tight, as though there wasn't enough to cover the muscle underneath, and it was coated in a thick, clear fluid.

The face had no mouth, and the eyes were spaced too far apart. Holes on either side of the grotesque head served as ears. The limbs were elongated, with the creature's fingers reaching just past its knees. The ribs were visible, although the rib cage itself was far too small and looked like a giant hand had crushed it inward. The stomach was the dominant feature, swelling out far beyond its skeletal frame. It gave the impression that the beast was heavily pregnant, though Frank hadn't yet been able to determine the sex, assuming it had one.

Every day, this monster prepared Frank's meals. It never made a sound, though Frank was somehow able to tell that it became upset when he didn't eat. Frank called it "The Chef. "

He sat down at the table and started shoveling as much food into his mouth as he could without choking. There was no escaping this, so he might as well get it over with quickly. The eggs were the first to go, as they barely required chewing. The toast, pancakes, waffles, and French toast didn't go down nearly as easy, despite being smothered in syrup, and Frank had to wash them down with large gulps of coffee. The Chef did nothing but stare at him, as it always did, except when he emptied his coffee mug. Then the monstrous cook would fetch the pot and refill it. It was strange how it never seemed to empty.

Frank stuffed himself with reckless abandon. He did not enjoy it, but a twisted part of him didn't want it to end—at least while he was gorging himself to the point of agony, he had no painful thoughts of Rebecca.

Not all of his meal stayed where it was supposed to. His shirt was already rapidly accumulating coffee and syrup stains. Pieces of egg and toast crumbs littered his lap and the floor. Rebecca would have hated the mess. Food was supposed to be on a plate or in a mouth, as she always said. The Chef silently watched him as he devoured the few remaining morsels of the obscenely large breakfast. Tears spilled out of Frank's eyes as he chewed his last bite. What would Rebecca say if she could see him like this? His silent crying turned into sobbing. He hated everything. He hated The Chef and he hated the food, but he mostly hated himself. Between bouts of overwhelming grief, he desperately wished he could end it—go upstairs, take his father's Glock out of the closet, and eat a bullet—the last meal of a broken man.

The tears in his eyes cleared enough for him to see. Gone were the dishes that had held his breakfast, and in their place were dishes that now held dessert. Ice cream, slices of apple and cherry pie, all manner of excess that sickened him to look at.

The Chef, silent as a corpse, pushed a bowl of vanilla pudding towards him. Frank started sobbing again as he spooned the pudding into his mouth, willing away the thoughts of Rebecca. Perhaps later he could kill himself— after desert.