Short Story

The checkout line was always the hardest part. It’s hard to stand the stares when you’re loading up an aisle’s worth of tomato soup onto the conveyor belt; not to mention that the cost of said cans would always end up near the 40 dollar mark, steep in this economy! But John deserved it. That special time of year had arrived once more, and he’d cut out his daily coffee for the past month to afford himself this one pleasure. He imagined removing the lids to all the cans, cutting himself on a few, the blood blending perfectly with the thick red liquid inside. The porcelain of the tub would be stained for at least a week afterwards, and only too aware of this, John had added a few bottles of bleach to the tail end of his grocery tally.

“37.97,” the cashier announced, interrupting images of recycling bags overflowing with beautifully labeled tin cans. This was a good year. Well under the projected costs.

***

“Oh yes, what a treat,” John whispered to himself to the tune of no song in particular as he added hot rocks to the bathtub. “A treat indeed, a treat for me, a treat for good ol’ Johnny boy.”

A sigh escaped Johnny boy’s lips as he lowered himself into the thick puree.

But something was off. The heat became too much, too quickly. So much so that the normally pleasing warmth of the soup was beginning to hurt a little.

“Couldn’t ask for a better way to go,” John shrugged with finality as his skin began to blister.

You see, John was a goldfish cracker and he was actually in a pot of tomato soup, and his entire existence was just a hallucination brought on by the leaking gas fumes in the kitchen. John would never be eaten, however, because the gas fumes killed Alice, the woman boiling the tomato soup.

Life, even one created for the sake of a story, is precious.