The Debtonation

THE PACKAGE WAS PLACED, out in the open, on a table, inside of a shopping mall, near an escalator, in a food court, interrupting a conversation between three people, one of whom was male, bald, and of a palid complexion. He had eyes which jittered: from one woman to the other.

The male was the person to have placed and slid the package to the centre of the cheap, circular table; tables of which there were rows upon rows upon rows, in every direction, seemingly entirely filled with seated, eating strangers.

The bigger woman, with a vast, almost exaggerated inhaling of the breath, had terror splattered on her face, and she was looking her God like a dream, in the form of cogs-n-powder under brown, unwrinkled paper.

'What is it?' asked the stranger-woman.

The other woman, the one with the eyes—who was married to the male, and pregnant—was not looking, not speaking. There was a ticking, like a wristwatch, only it was louder, like a timer in a cartoon bomb. The package was weighty, and the male had clearly struggled to lift it from the backpack by his feet.

'A bomb,' he said.

His wife had closed her eyes and the other woman gasped.

'And why?' she asked.

He didn't answer yet. The volume of the place was overtaking him.

Children yelled out order numbers and enormous families grabbed their trays of takeaway. Underpaid international students unrelentingly pressed and popped overpriced sugarteas, with bubbles inside, also yelling order numbers. A team of exclusively attractive young girls in identical clothes blended fruit and icecream and yelled out other human beings' names. 'Paper straw, or plastic?' Teenagers put their hands and face on glass which separated heat-trays from the customers. '141!' Other teenagers hollered and laughed and smushed around their food. A sixty-something year old third-generation Australian was scanning under tables with her spot-sweep – her hair was in a bun, and she could not look at anyone. Several toddlers and babies screamed or spoke unknowingly of volume. An eftpos terminal made a long and drawn-out beeeeeeep. '142!' Cash resisters opened. Cash registers closed. Someone threw a chicken nugget, someone else had tried to catch it in their mouth, and another person slipped on it. '143!' Again and again, as people stood to leave—their mouths stuffed, unsatiated—they would leave behind their rubbish, scattered on their trays and tables (although these people had been sure enough to check and double check that they'd left behind no shopping bags, no phones or cards or things).

Beneath all this the ticking could be heard.

'I... My child cannot eat.'

'She's not yet born!' cried his wife.

No one around them had been listening.

'And your plan?' asked the stranger-woman.

'144!'

'I haven't got one.'

A song by Ariana Grande began to play throughout the mall. The teeth of the escalators chewed and chewed and chewed, so people were ascending. Burgers pumped with sugar. Sushi pumped with salt. Former bodies of former animals were pressed into perfectly consistent shapes, mostly circles, just to be made formless by the teeth, and formless further still – stomachs working overtime. The stomachs more than anything stood before the male. He heard every sound: every chew, every swallow, every gargled acid-slop. It was an ecstasy or deathrattle, and nothing in between.

Babies kick. Air-conditioner vacuum. Teenager sweat: pimple-faced by oil or stress? Ariana Grande plays again. '146!' The timer on a fryer beeps. 'Hey where's my order.' The timer on a fryer beeps. '147!' A cash register opens. 'Hey where's my order!' Someone slams it shut.

'I...'

The male looked at his wife and at the stranger-woman: they've both begun to sob, sob, sobbing.

And the timer on a fryer beeps.

This story was submitted to Vocal's (SFS3) Challenge: Brown Paper Box.

Thank you for reading. If it was worth your time, tips of any size contribute to my living, and are greatly appreciated.

If you enjoyed this story but do not wish to tip, sharing it also makes a difference, and pressing the heart hits an algorithm.

with love

- T VV