Ehron Zech
Food Excerise
Ben and I are walking down a dimly lit corridor. The walls of the tight passage are a faded stucco that has been smeared with the soot of the candles that burn in their holders, which are set at eye level on the wall; they afford a dim light every three paces or so. The floor seems to have collected years of dust and debris. Our feet make scratching sandpaper sounds as we walk along behind our guide. I can see over the shoulder of the cloaked man in front of us- what seems to be the termination of the passage- which is a solid dark door with a large antique knocker on it. The knocker is just like the one out of the cartoon Alice in Wonderland. We pass under the intermittent spotlights of the candles on either side and arrive at the terminus. The Knocker presents a large sneering face with what looks like a circular bone hanging from its mouth. The man in the cloak lifts the bone on its hinge and drops it. A loud clank results, which quickens my pulse. I can hear movement on the other side of the door. It sounds like someone is pulling chains off of the door; links passing through rings on either side of the door, from the floor to the top of the door. The door is opened after much labor; its hinges squeak out a protest of what seems like centuries of non-usage.
The cloaked man shows us into a room that is square in shape and barely large enough to fit the dark oak banquet table in it. I see a side door to my right and no other exit besides the one we came in through. The top half of every wall in this dead-end room is fitted with a wide, tarnished mirror. I peer into one and see the sunken face of a man in desperation that has lived after the stock market crash of 2010. The only reason I have survived is because of the philanthropy of my dear coin-dealer friend Ben, whose natural constitution is that of a skeleton, due to his crohn’s disease. We weakly grin at each other, knowing that our first real meal in days is about to arrive. Upon our arrival in this building, we had to exchange a large five pound bar of gold for each of us to gain entrance.
On the table in front of us sits two crystal goblets and a dark green glass bottle of some unidentified liquid. The man in the cloak points to the bottle and says, “Please indulge yourself and whet your appetite with yon bottle, the food will arrive shortly.” He then excuses himself, rapping quickly with his knuckles on the side door. After a short spell the door opens quickly and the cloaked man disappears through it. We remove the stools from on top of the table and prepare to sample the drink in front of us. My lips are cracked and dry. My tongue seems like it was licking a bowl of sand. We sit opposite each other, so that we can gauge each other’s reaction to the prospective meal. I am stooping to sit, when suddenly a panel on the wall to my left drops down like a drawbridge and ejects what looks like a dusty old phonograph. A record is on it. I straighten my frame and walk over to the ancient music machine. I bend over it and see the record on the table is labeled “Music to play in the dark”, the artist seems to be Coil, but I cannot tell because part of the label appears that it has been damaged by time, or some sort of liquid being spilled on it. I pull the record out of the sleeve and put it on the turntable. I hold my breath and lower the needle onto the record, being careful to not scratch the vinyl. From the large bell of the phonograph come forward the distant and crackling sounds of some droning tone. I am immediately reminded of how well this record had worked to put me into a sort of trance, back when I still had a home, back before the streets became over-run with the roving gangs of the world.
I turn then and ask Ben, “How about that strange liquor then? Shall we have a sample?” He laughs and begins to rub his hands together vigorously. We each grab our respective glasses. He lifts the bottle to his face and pulls the stopper out of the top, inhaling the scent of the liquid as if it were fine cologne. He passes the bottle to me and I take a hint of the stuff into my nostrils. It is both sweet like a chocolate and yet bitter like a cranberry. I smell other lingering spices and accents that bring back memories of cold, desperate winters; the kind where your best defense at times is to just lock yourself in your tower with some fine wine, a woman and some intoxicating music to staple it all together. I hold out the bottle to Ben and pour him a glass of the ruby-colored liquid. Then I pour a glass for myself. It seemed like such a triumphant moment that I wanted to honor it with a toast, so I uttered the first thing that came to mind: “Here is to all of those who have come before us and all of our friends we have seen fall before us, may they never be forgotten!” We clink our glasses together as the music on the air starts to reach a screeching crescendo. I take a sip of the dark liquid and immediately my sinuses are opened up. My throat burns with the passage of the smokey, sweet liquid. I feel the effects of the alcohol all the way down into the very ends of my limbs and my head begins to swim ever so slightly. It is then that I notice a piece of parchment lying on the table with the heading on it of “menu”. I open it and see in bold old English lettering the phrase “Tonight’s Special: New Yorker Strip”. I can smell the faint hint of what seems to be a barbecue, the smoke is rolling in through some unseen vent, and my saliva starts to cleanse my mouth of the liquor I had just imbibed……
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