When Animals Tour the Zoo
by Sean Ennis
I used this time to ask my wife how I could become a better lover. She thought I meant in the bedroom, vixen, but I meant the kitchen. My recipes were stale, my utensils even spotty from the dishwasher. Instead of instructing and inspiring myself, I had been watching a video over and over where a zookeeper introduces an iguana to a seal. The zoo was closed, but I guess the idea was that the animals were bored with no people to watch. But no more from those two aliens!
Who could say how my wife might have answered this question, on her terms? Not me of course, that’s why I didn’t ask. That I fear my wife is self-explanatory. One thing I like about the kitchen is that it is the only place in the house that doesn’t have “room” in its title. It could be for anything, not just rigidly bed or bathing, laundry or living.
In these strange times, every recipe seems to require some feckless, troglodytic narrative as preamble. These are about as useful to me as the time spent in the waiting room while my son gets his teeth cleaned. I pace and I scroll.
What this recipe needs is not more storyline though, or nostalgia, or even bacon crumbled on top. In Japan, there is a word for it. Some days, I obviously think if I start the dish early enough in the morning—my lovely wife strolling by in her pajamas for some OJ!—that deliciousness will arrive. I hate food magazines headlining quick and easy (cheap can go either way). I’m not trying to reinvent the meal. I’m thinking about a decent tomato sauce, a typical chicken noodle soup that cures disease.
I like to see clean plates. I like a full dishwasher.
My wife suggests I come back to bed, the morning light so romantic, the tornado watch still with a few more hours left. She may want to answer my question. She may have questions of her own. And a few more weeks of this and I may be that heartsick reptile not even fathoming the lovely seal behind glass.
Sean Ennis is the author of CHASE US: Stories (Little A) and his flash fiction has recently appeared in Passages North, (mac)ro(mic), Tiny Molecules, F(r)iction and Bull. More of his work can be found at seanennis.net
