2. Deliverance - Unfortunates, Threatener, Rescuer
I hadn't wanted any lunch.
She tempted me with lumpia and fried tokwa.
So we sat across from each other, wonderingly staring at the two plastic cups of soda. One for her, one for me.
"So."
I sliced into the lumpia crosswise, severing the large lettuce leaf base and spilling the togue innards.
"Hm."
I speared a block of tokwa and drowned it in soy sauce.
"Well."
I bit down into the food with relish, savoring each crunch of breaking down.
She was silent. She hadn't even touched her bowl of lomi.
Instead she traced with a fingernail a bead of sweat tracking down her Coke.
She was silent, waiting.
I demolished my meal and washed down the evidence in an eddy of Mountain Dew.
"I'm sorry," her words held the finality I had been trying for with my own disjointed ones.
She must have seen the sign she was waiting for. Or she must simply have decided to go with her gut. She held out a cellophane-wrapped brownie. I smiled and nodded.
I exhaled without a sound, disarmed.
Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng
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the tension is so thick you can hear the crunch when you slice through it. :P nice!
ReplyDeleteso i take it the threatener was the one rescued? tama ba intindi ko? i am still working on my story!!!
Thanks Kimpot :) The 1st person was the threat as a response to the other person's past transgression. Wah. La lang. Para lang ma-jump start ang utak ko. The new post is nicer :)
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