Cabbage
Seren Thomas
15/01/2020 | flash fiction | 3.5 minute read
The cabbage stared up at him. Once served steaming hot, sending beads of sweat running down his nose into the gravy, now it lay there cold and clammy. Stark against the plate. The colour of ingrown toenails. Of sludge and slime. His twitching legs made the table cloth quiver.
The boy at the front of the class. Hand in the air as soon as the teacher draws breath. Straining so hard it’s a wonder he doesn’t shit himself. He reaches for the stars. For the answer. For love.
Across the table sat a scarecrow of man. Too full of sadness and fatigue to eat a single mouthful. His face was puckered and swollen from years of bobbing just below the surface. From big toe to ear lobe, the man and the boy looked just the same. Even their hands matched. Two were balled into ugly fists resting quiet and still on the table. The other two were dancing. Bungling. Fumbling. The man studied his tiny twin intently, pupils glued to the fork and its journey from plate to mouth to plate.
After the boy had wolfed down the ham and mash, only the cabbage remained. No more distractions. The stink wafted up like an open sewer. He gagged and swayed in his chair.
There wasn’t a thing in the world that the man wouldn’t do to make sure his son got a hot meal at night. He gave his fingernails, his eyebrows, the dead skin on his feet to put food on the table. He was out all day hunting for scraps and dinner was never waiting for him when he got home.
Now his glare was ice and fire, and the boy knew there was no other way.
Bionic. Robot kids don’t feel a thing. A steel claw clasped the fork and speared a couple of jiggling strips. The father watched on, eyes cold and smoking, as it crept towards a gaping mouth, grazed lips and dropped out of sight.
There was just enough time for the man to dive beneath the table before streams of emerald puke splattered every surface. Once the deluge had passed and it was safe to break cover, his son was nowhere to be seen. The cabbage and the plate beneath it had been swallowed by a calm green sea. Perhaps the boy had sunk to its depths.
Only the owl roosting in the school roof knew that the boy was alive and well. Hunched and half asleep, it watched him hop between lengthening shadows and scale the playground gates. He weaved between the rows of desks and slid back into a front seat, eyes on the plastic clock above the whiteboard. Only twelve hours until morning. Until lessons start.
Cleverness won’t buy a parent’s love, but eating your greens might.
about Seren (they/them/theirs)
Seren works as a junior consultant in the healthcare sector, and is currently creating a zine telling the stories of LGBTQ+ people with eating disorders. They’re also a musician and tentative writer who loves greasy spoons and long walks around London.
instagram: @serentheheron
twitter: @SerenThomas_