Chapter 1: Borscht
NanoWriMo 2020 Speculative Fiction
“I was adrift deep in the ocean of life before the fires started. Just as Prometheus taught humans how to make fire, and tortured for eternity for it, the new Americans have been taught how to make revolution, and are lighting the fields and forests up.”
*
There’s nothing like reading a shitty book to inspire you to write a novel. If this bland eggwhite was able to get published, who’s to say my name is not in the hat? I reflected on the inane lines from the book I had recently finished reading with my morning coffee- a pseudo “spec-fic” book which claimed to be reflecting on the uptick in forest fires that had started taking place around Southern Oregon and Northern California. I grunted as I sanded the moss off of the smooth bone white stilts that my house sat upon. Why the fuck don’t I write a book? I decided to do it, if only to prove that eggwhite was the shit one, and not me.
I had also just gotten a new haircut and didn’t like it. You could say I was in a critical mood that day. Who actually likes their haircuts when they pay for them? Probably the same amount of people who want to pay for cold beet soup in the cold, wet climate of Oregon. Not many, but I do have a few regulars. For the soup — I don’t do haircuts.
People are attracted to my restaurant, and I guess it has a sort of allure being built upon two peg legs at the edge of the forest. But me? I’m sorry. Get outta here. No way. Maybe it’s because it’s also my home, it’s lost its allure. The weekly task of sanding the moss off of the wood legs to expose the tight knuckled white wood below, the ever weeding of the noxious bright red mushrooms all over the yard that tend to deter customers if left to their own devices, the broken front door that creaked like a coffin being opened. It was definitely not paradise, but it was mine.
But it’s not really my restaurant, is it? I just make the fucking borscht and pelmeni. A little respect around here, huh? I’ve rented the space from this god forsaken imbecile who feels the need to lecture me for no reason at all, and I sit there and take it. Like a fucking child. Because I need him to let me keep this restaurant. It’s not just my way of life, it’s my fucking home.
It’s eleven am, and the lunch crowd is going to start turning up. I wash my hands vigorously in the kitchen sink, doing it over when they just don’t feel clean the first time. Turning the rusted knob on the gas stove, flames erupt and I almost burn the heel of my hand.
“Damn thing.”
I place the pot over the flame, the beet juice almost immediately begins to bubble, the beginnings of the borscht. I wash my hands again. Then I pour myself a few fingers of vodka and slam it back, then grab a beer from the fridge. Take the edge off.
I open a can of tuna as well, and pour the tuna water into a bowl for the cats outside. If the humans are going to eat, the cats should eat first.
The bells on the broken front door twinkle, signifying that a customer has entered. I turn the heat on the borscht down, slam my shot and hide my beer behind the pot of bubbling borscht.
“It’s not ready yet,” I yell.
The customer, a man, says it’s fine, he can wait. I sneak around the corner and eye him as he pulls out a newspaper and makes himself comfortable at my table. Fucking men.
Once the borscht is done, I wipe my hands on my red apron, blow my nose into my handkerchief, and wash my hands again. I pour myself another few fingers of vodka, and finally feel the buzz begin to kick in, making my lips tingle and feel swollen with hope. Hope that I can escape my feelings, this life, this man, this borscht.
What’s so bad about my life anyway, you ask? Go to fucking hell.
When the borscht is done, I ladle the steaming red liquid into a blue porcelain bowl, and stick it in the freezer. Borscht is served chilled. Five minutes later, I bring it out to the man. Tuesday is borscht day, he is a regular.
*
Wednesday is pelmeni day, and I make a mushroom broth to put the little pelmeni in. Oregon is rich in mushroom abundance, but you have to know what you’re looking for lest you start to play Russian Roulette.
Maybe somedays you want to play that game.
Sometimes I will close my eyes, and run my hands along the mossy ground, picking mushrooms just by feel, not by look. This is a fun practice, because the deadly and the safe mushrooms generally feel the same, it’s the coloring that you really want to look for.
I’ve eaten my share of deadly mushrooms, but they don’t kill me of course. I don’t think I can die. I’ve been around since before records were kept, when stories where just told at bedtime in the wind to keep little children from straying too far from their little cottage homes.
They really have no idea that I am playing with their lifespan. Give them 20 years, or take 20 away? They don’t notice. It’s not just the mushroom roulette, I play games with their lives in other ways. Still, I am bored. I’ve been stripped of serotonin since before those rag tag humans invented religion.
Yes, I want to be a writer. Who doesn’t? In those fairy tales about what it takes to write, there is always much life experience lived. In my life though, the more experience I have the more I realize that writing is a futile act of trying to capture moments. A way to capture moments for the dead. No one can do life justice through writing, and yet no life is worth anything without writers.
I am an avid reader. I need to feel surrounded by chaos and love and diversity, but I feel like talking to people is much a waste of time. I prefer to be with my thoughts, unless I am drinking. Then I can perhaps have a good time with people. That’s why I’m usually toasted while serving borscht on Tuesdays.
I walk out to check on the man and his borscht. He grins, then embarrassed, covers his borscht stained mouth with a starchy napkin.
“How are you doing today, Mowse?”
It always takes me by surprise when they call me by name- bellends think that they can take up my time with chitchat. Yet, I have a hard time telling them to fuck off. I guess I do care about the customers in a way, yet I cannot stand their mindless dribbling about the weather, the soup, the smile. And when they want to talk about things deeper than that, it’s generally just them talking for themselves, I know it’s never for me. When they finally do ask about me, I have already taken them off the list of cares in my mind.
The man drones on about his childhood dinners, and how this reminds him of sitting at the table with his family, his family who are across the country now, plane rides too expensive… yadayadayada. I can almost predict their conversations, and sometimes I wonder if I’m making it all up in my own head.
I sit, nod, wait to see if I don’t say anything that this man will leave me alone and let me go back to my drinks. He keeps going. He keeps going. Exhausted, I keep my eyes on the wall behind him, and wait for a pause in the monologue to sneak away. Why do people think they can take others time? Where is the fucking consent?
Finally, unable to hide my grimaces any longer and feeling a headache building in my shoulder muscles, I cough, turn, and mumble something about the borscht burning. I return to my kitchen, slam another few fingers of vodka, and wait for the man to leave.
*
…
