Sandwich

This piece was written somewhat as a satirical response to Ian McEwan's novel Saturday. It is chiefly a mimic of his writing style.

He sinks his neat, white teeth into the chunky cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich while overlooking his imposing view of the dining room table. From where he sits, it looks impressive, and arouses within him a feeling of immense pride. That he should own such a table overwhelms his concept of fairness; but he is not bothered by this feeling. He thinks it is merely a curse of upper-middle class richesse, this guilt that strikes so many who have no way of dealing with their wealth. But he, being immune to such trifles of the mind, soldiers on, effortlessly savouring every bite of his mouth-watering creation. He feels it is a marvel of human engineering. Yet at the same time it amazes him that mere grey matter can both compose and enjoy such simple, yet elegant and powerful beauty. He feels the power of the sandwich to occupy the human mind with intense focus. In preparing it, the man becomes a hero… a structural engineer, culinary expert, and housewife. The sandwich is the most important device of our time. Able to satisfy the needs of the body and mind, it is vital to the human existence-survival of the fittest. And through the wonders of natural selection, those who have no-one to make their sandwich either try, or die.

He sits alone, only the sounds of his ancient grandfather clock to keep him company. He would converse with it, only his mouth is full of sandwich, and he does not think it is worth delaying his pleasure for something he can talk to later (even though he knows he never will, since he hasn’t the time or insanity). He feels his teeth crush the cheese, and the pleasant bitterness of the sizable slabs of imported dairy product--which he inevitably seems to cut when preparing a sandwich--caresses his taste buds. He thinks of his wife, who used to sit with him, alone, at this very table. How amazing was she, that she could cut even slices of cheese. It is an art he has resigned to never pick up. He knows that it will not work. Besides, she will return from her emergency shopping trip soon enough (bread and milk are hard to find in a hyper-inflation nightmare. Thus when it is around, she jumps). He remembers watching how the blade sunk into the orange-yellow mass of what once was reprocessed grass prepared for a calf. It made him think of his old friend Samuel, who loved knives. He was a jolly chap who had a collection of 200 rare knives. He knew everything there was to know about these vital tools of our modern civilization, the axes of a city-bound homo-sapiens. He was even on the cutting edge of blade technology--his company had the most sophisticated research facility in the world. Roger had been there, and on his visit had taken lunch… a cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich made by his wife. His were better, he felt. He thought they had a raw energy that was unfound in a professionally constructed sandwich. They were somehow better in an unrefined state, where incongruent chunks of tomato and cheese combine with fresh lettuce, French mayonnaise, a spattering of peri-peri and fresh bread to make up a simple, yet marvellous meal. It was his tradition of culinary pride, one he’d somehow passed on to his successful chef son, whose daily bread was such a sandwich. How a computer programmer and a mathematics teacher could combine to produce a chef and a champion swimmer, he’d never know. He only knew that life was too short to pass up his sandwich, the decadent pleasure of which had now passed.

Praise for Sandwich:

“A thrilling and exciting account of one man’s lunch in a modern dining room.”—Daily Male.

“Amazing…Provokes thought about what type of dining room tables we own.”—Washington Pole.

“Every word keeps the reader on the edge of his seat. Not until the last word do you realize it is really a microcosm of life. In a dining room. At lunchtime.”—The Timepieces.