Sandwich: A Fable

The world was a haze, and then it was darkness—pure and untainted to the eyes of the perceiver. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, though it felt simultaneously like a moment, and an aeon. The dark was cold too, and the weight of the world forced him to lie still on a belly that was soft as bread—soft, because it was bread. The knowledge was a part of him just like any other fact of life.

He was a sandwich.

And this was the refrigerator.

He’d been waiting to be eaten—waiting for that door to open, and a nondescript hand to grab at his flesh and carry him into the light. At least he would feel the tiniest bit of warmth, even if only for a moment, before being devoured. Though the thought unnerved him to no end, he tried to believe it would be peaceful.

But the light never seemed to come, and the moments grew to hours, which turned into meaningless spans of time that could’ve been eternity. Was this it? Would this be his death? Maybe there was something to people experiencing death differently—especially for the unwillingly deceased.

That was all there was to think about, and though he could move, he dared not for fear of falling. He would wait until the first signs of light revealed themselves through the crack in the door. Maybe he didn’t have to accept the hand. Maybe he could break for it—as dangerous and absurd a plan as that was.

But he didn’t have to, because one day, the dark was sliced neatly in half by a bright, vertical line, and from its light he could begin to make out the walls of the refrigerator, and see how truly alone he was in there: no butter under the glass lid in the door, no veggies in a plastic bag waiting for a later meal, and no steaks or pot roast—though he felt blessed not being trapped with the sting of beef’s blood.

There were crumbs that could’ve been the remnants of former friends, some extra salad that may have been used in part to form his insides, but it was clear that grocery day hadn’t come around any time soon.

At first he was terrified of the light, fearing it would signal the reach of the hand—but none came. And when none came for a long time, and he caught himself eying the crevice like a piece of fine artwork, a sense of temptation began to creep in. All I need is to find a way down, he thought. And if there was a will, there had to be a way.

The shelves were too far apart to be treated like stairs, though at first he considered nearing the edge and making a leap—but that could prove instantly fatal. Another option would be to form a staircase by dropping other foods to the bottom. It was less risky, but unfortunately there wasn’t much in the way of supplies that he could reach from the top shelf.

Finally, but not optimally, he could use the cellophane wrap around his body to his advantage. Though it made mobility a problem, it could hold him together through a tumble—though that wasn’t a guarantee. But the fridge was warming up, and for the first time, he was feeling mildly comfortable. But too much longer, he thought, and I’m done for. Between mold, moisture, and the chance at a little blunt trauma, he opted for the latter.

Sandwich wriggled as best he could, moving conservatively to keep the cellophane intact. When he reached the edge of the shelf, he forced his eyes closed and made a final push. The air flew past him, and down he came—crashing into the bottom of the fridge with a near-deafening crinkle. He blinked, breathed in the sour air, and felt that yes, he was all in one piece. He looked around to see the many plastic containers that resided on the bottom shelf, but he didn’t dare explore. The last drop to the floor was a small one, and sandwich had no trouble repeating his actions from the first time. The fridge door served almost as a net that caught him before opening wider, and he came tumbling to the kitchen floor. Oversized chess pieces could have stood on the checkered, black-and-white tiles, and with all the dust that flew in the air on his landing, he supposed cleaning day hadn’t passed in a long time either. But that was far from the worst:

Sandwich stared at a body. A man. His shirt was tattered and stained with dark orange and brown spots, skin lacerated and disintegrating to reveal yellowed bone and dry muscle. The floor underneath him was crusted with more dark red—a dry pond, he thought—and he lay with one arm reaching out, leaving his face out of view. The poor fellow probably wanted something. The sight made him nauseous and weak all over. He wanted to empathize—to feel sorrow for the suffering of this stranger, but it was all so surreal. Numbing. He was thankful he couldn’t see the face. It would be too much to bear.

Beyond the pool of blood and the checkered tile, the world was in ruins; glass lay shattered free of all the windowpanes, revealing thick clouds hanging dark in the sky. The living room couch appeared bleached and covered in smudges of white chalk, while the fabric closest to the window was charred and full of holes. Other furniture lay knocked over or broken into heaps of rubble. Parts of the ceiling drooped down (rain water perhaps?) and walls stood with large chunks torn away or burned. It could’ve only been the aftermath of a few different possibilities, but Sandwich preferred not to think about them—at least then.

If this were a fantasy, his friends would be there to cheer him on, applauding him in his successful fall and venturing out, but there was no one here. Just him and the body.

Too long out here, he thought, and I won’t be telling this tale to anyone. There had to be a cool place out there somewhere. A place where he could last through the weather, and where he wouldn’t be bothered by a wild predator. But he’d have to move. Now or never.

The front door was already open for him—rocking in the wind. Beyond was a cobblestone walkway, and holes in the grass all around that had filled with rainwater. One of the holes looked like a former koi pond, though what remained of the koi were lumps of colorless flesh rotting belly up in the murky pool.

He took one cautious step after the next, moving from stone to stone and feeling the grass between tickle his now bare belly. The wind was chill on his uncovered crust. If he could just make it down the path, there was a road that lead between the rolling hills. He thought a road would have to lead somewhere he could stay, eventually. He made each moment count—stepping down the walkway with increasing confidence. But the bigger you are, the harder you fall, and fall he did—tripping and landing just on the muddy edge of a water hole. He managed to wet his back corner, which absorbed the water and began to crumble. Pain burned all through his back, and at the red hot center where the wound lay.

He wanted to lie still and close his eyes, breathe the air and feel the cool dirt beneath him like a best friend, but there wasn’t time to afford that. Move, move, MOVE! he thought. With the will of a horse in its last winning strides, he tugged his body along. The wound had a persistent fiery sting that tingled, and made all other movements an intense labor, but he pushed himself past the muddy shore and came to a stop in the dry grass, where he breathed one lung-full after the next. How he wished he hadn’t abandoned the cellophane—no matter how cumbersome it was.

Grass turned to dirt: sharp sediment and slivers of wood and rock that dug into his belly as he carried on. But he couldn’t keep up like this. There was no way could he survive in this state of exhaustion, so the need for shelter became that much more urgent. There was a hill not too far away with the faintest bit of green lingering in its foliage. It looked like there was some kind of entrance there as well—probably a snake hole or rabbit’s den.

On he climbed, until at last he came to the mound and its cave, growing over with decaying mushrooms, and stringy, yellow moss. He thought of the koi in the pond. Though it was dark and chill inside, Sandwich thought at least it would hold him through the rain—which looked like it could approach at any time, seeing those clouds growing darker and darker.

“You!” a shrill, windy voice blew out from the cave, “Come closer.”

Sandwich grew wide-eyed and still. And just what do you want from me? He thought.

“Come inside, please,” it spoke again, this time with a hint of false warmth.

“What do you want?” Sandwich said, refusing to budge. He wished so dearly that the cave was empty so he could rest, but that possibility appeared far off.

“I would like… to have a little chat,” it said. “It’s time we introduced ourselves.”

“And how can I trust you on your word?”

“By the look in my eyes,” it began an unhinged laugh.

I’m going to step closer, Sandwich told himself, but if I see so much as a fang or a claw… or something worse… I’m breaking for it. Better yet, he would take as few steps inside as possible.

Beyond the sticky moss and mushroom stems, the floor to the cave was barren dirt. Pebbles lay scattered here and there. Beyond that—little more. “Where are you?” Sandwich said. He wasn’t successful in keeping the fear out of his voice.

“Just a little more, and to the right,” the voice croaked.

He went cold seeing what lay before him. At one time, it had been a squirrel, or maybe a prairie dog? It was difficult to parse as dark as it was. All he could see was the shriveled-eyed stare of the woodland creature—its jaw hanging wide open—and brittle skin clinging to a ribcage where a heart once beat. It lay there stock-still, and sandwich questioned if this had indeed been the source of the voice.

Though its jaw didn’t move, the dry whisper of the voice floated from where the creature lay, “You cling to life like a fool, but we’ll meet once more soon enough. I’ll relish each moment of your decline—each hopeless effort to keep your soul on this earth. You will not forget, because I am the voice—the voice in the darkness that cannot be escaped.”

He was too terrified to move, too terrified to remove his eyes from the damned thing, and it continued to stare into his very essence.

“You,” it continued, “will try. You’ve tried harder than anything I’ve ever seen before, and for that I feel the slightest pity; for it’s fools like you that hold so tightly onto life—”

Shapes emerged from the thing’s mouth: appearing first as slight, shiny reflections. Then he could see the fuzz—such a deep red it was almost indistinguishable from the black. Worms. Larvae. Maggots. They began to cover the animal like a second skin that obscured its original form, and after a moment they scattered—leaving behind the ivory glint of bone.

Sandwich turned to flee with the sound of their crawling and clicking filling his ears. He stumbled over mushrooms, tumbled down the hill, and lost all his breath as he came crashing to the bottom. There was no sense to it, no way to process what he had just witnessed, though he felt the voice was right; it wouldn’t be the last time they’d meet.

His back itched, and upon turning over to rub his crust on the dirt, he found a rogue worm had latched onto him. He cursed at it and watched it wriggle helplessly once he threw it to the ground. “Serves you right,” he said, “thinking I could be your home—your bite of lunch.”

Up in the sky, the clouds were darker than ever, and still there was no shelter in sight. But there was something—glinting red and yellow a little while down the road. Before the water and the worms, it wouldn’t have felt so far away, but now all Sandwich could think about was the agony that took hold of all of his being.

But I must press on, he thought. Even if I faint.

The road scraped at his belly like sandpaper, worse than ever before. He was pleading, begging the forces of anything out there, that whatever lay beyond would bring safety and shelter. The edges of his crust were drying out, which compounded the suffering from his other injuries, until finally he could no longer bear to keep his eyes open for long. Down the hill, the red and yellow objects grew larger and larger, until at last he could make out the long, thin arm of a handle—hanging off the edge of what could only be… A wagon? He thought.

It sent cold pangs shivering down his back. A sensation, visceral, though without explanation—though he knew the wagon itself was likely no threat at all. So what was it then?

The handle was enough of a bridge for Sandwich, as frustrating and tedious as it was to keep a solid grip and steady balance. He inched up the metal bit by bit with the caution of an inexperienced tightrope walker—a feat which, at a few points, threatened to toss him down to the gravel once more with all his exhaustion.

An assortment of stones greeted him in the wagon’s basin—a fine collection. Each was smooth and polished, as if by river water. Turning to the right, staring up at the nearby rising hill and letting his muscles relax, he let his eyes come to a stop at the yellow sticking out of the grass. A raincoat. And inside it—laying face-down in a way that was familiar and macabre—a young boy. He could see light brown hair swaying in the breeze, growing in patches from a gray-skinned scalp. Something about it he could not say, pained more than anything else in the world. More than maggots and the scraping of his belly. More than dried pools of blood and rotting fish.

The young boy in the raincoat was something more. And instead of wishing to flee, he wanted to spend all the time in the world looking out at it. If it weren’t for the required second climb up the metal handle (which felt hopelessly impossible then,) he would approach the body, and this time, he would look into its face. He would not be afraid.

But there were more pressing needs for shelter and recovery. It still felt like forever away, but God damn, The Voice in the Darkness had been right—he clung so tightly to hope and to life. Maybe he was a fool for it.

After a little thought, Sandwich gathered his strength and moved the stones one by one to the opposite end of the wagon. It would be just enough weight to begin the wagon’s steady roll down the hill. He pushed the final stone, and as the wheels began their turn into motion, he took one last shaky glance at the boy in the grass. The sight didn’t chill him any less.

After only a minute, the wagon traveled what would have easily taken hours to traverse, and it came to rest a few yards from what had once been a nice car—though the elements had long since stripped the exterior of its color and brought along rust and decay. But it would make a good shelter, at least for the moment.

He thought the only trouble would be finding a way in, but after circling around he saw the driver’s side door ajar, and another body there to greet him. This one was a young woman. Decaying hair like all the others. Purple dress. She lay pitched over on her side with both shoulder and arm making contact with the ground. This time he could see a face—pale eyes wide to the sky, jaw crooked, and a spade-shaped hole where a nose once was. Sandwich thought she would have been a beautiful woman before all this.

With as much discomfort as the maneuver would bring, her pose would serve well enough as a bridge. He was concerned about her limbs wobbling during his ascent, but when he lifted himself up her arm, feeling the cold, pale, sore-covered flesh, even beneath her clothes, he found her joints held rigid. He found no comfort having that face in his view. The face of yet another to meet their fate. Wind whispered as it blew past, bringing with it the distant rattle and whirr of machines. Industry.

The car’s interior had held up nicely, considering. Much of the brown leather seating was intact—though not without a burn mark here and there. As far as Sandwich was concerned, this was the best place he could stay yet. Hopping onto the back seat, he lay down on the cool brown leather and let his heavy eyes close with relief. With that, consciousness began to slip away. He did not mind the sour breeze that made the car tremble, nor any of nature’s distant cries; with those, he wasn’t completely alone. Sleep carried him away effortlessly.

Then it all came down, shattering at once.

No way to tell the hours that had passed. Frantic surprise took over him as his vision shook in and out of focus. She was moving—the dead woman. Gravel crunched under her body as her weight shifted from off her resting place in the driver’s seat. She vanished with the flutter of her purple dress, and steadying himself, he saw he wasn’t alone.

He couldn’t see their faces all at once, but the glimpses of hueless, gray skin he caught weren’t pretty. Their attire was of the tidy, dry-cleaned, corporate variety: ebony overcoats punctuated with crimson neck ties. God knows what they had done to the corpse, but now it seemed they had other pressing tasks, making the metal shriek as they began to dismantle the car pice by piece. They worked with a coordinated efficiency of a hive, and Sandwich wondered who the big boss was. The queen. He lay completely still in fear of being spotted and snatched up.

They left behind nothing but the metal framework, seating, and roof, and the world turned to Yellow as sandwich flew into something large. He went sliding from his spot, landing on the cold surface of whatever he lay inside. One of the creatures grunted, there was a crash, and once again he was submerged in complete darkness; they’d put on the lid.

The shock was incomparable. Fear in every note of his heart beating tirelessly. It could have been fatigue, or just his eyes stripped of all use without light, but the darkness bore more than itself.

Wriggling. Writhing. Fuzzy black things eating and eating to no end—growing larger and larger with infinite appetites. Apples disappeared from the counter, then the counter itself began to crumble. They were eating the checkered tiles and the corpse and the fridge while its chittering grew louder. Biting into his flesh. Eating into his home. And soon there would be nothing left—

Devoured, the voice in the darkness whispered, and the decaying remains of a squirrel—a skeletal puppet no shorter than a pine tree—emerged from the writhing mess. All things will be devoured. It peered down at him with a piercing coldness. The wagon lay below, and starting with the wheels, the slithering darkness made it disappear. The wind rumbled through. Wind that comes after a nuclear blast. Airborne shrapnel. The ground trembled and the world shattered at the sound of another voice, Daddy, Daddy please! Where are you! We need you Daddy, come home! The flash of a yellow raincoat. Labored steps taken closer and closer in galoshes.

The face he saw was peeling away in places, leaving bone behind, and still he wanted to call out, Son! He felt the sting of forgotten tears. Wriggling. Chittering. Click-click-click. The hungriest ones didn’t even leave the bones—only a raincoat and galoshes that fell to the ground empty. They disappeared under the hordes of brethren that only grew. They reached up into the dusty air like dead men’s fingers hungry for a bite. They would keep going like that. Keep going until there would be nothing left.

Tears. Sandwich woke realizing they weren’t really tears at all on him, but rain. It was starting to come down in a sprinkle, but there was sure to be more. He opened his eyes to those droplets splashing down in a wasteland of stripped cars, rubble, machine parts, and whatever else they could find.

Not too far away, he could see more of them, unloading each hexagonal, yellow bin and leaving no object untouched. They worked with the silent efficiency of spiders, and catching a look under their hats, he could see antennae, spines, and fuzz. Worms, he thought. Then they all climbed into something that almost resembled a dump truck—only it was longer and segmented—and rumbled off over the hills with the empty bins.

They say when you’re looking for something you begin to see it everywhere, but for Sandwich, there was no shelter in sight when he turned back to the landfill. It all blended together into an incomprehensible sea of junk in the oncoming storm. And even when he saw the blood-red corner of the wagon sticking out from under rubble, there was still the problem of moving one place to another and traversing uneven ground. But I’ll try, he thought. Even if I am a fool.

The pain was worse than it had ever been before—searing up and down his whole body with the rain that stung like acid. He was on the roof of a car, and not much farther away, there was another that could be reached with a little jump. Sandwich pulled himself along. The burden of his own weight almost outweighed his strength. His underside was damp and going soggy.

And then, with a push that neared him to the roof’s edge, he felt the cold ache of something sliding out behind him. The feeling of bowels leaving his body. He turned to see a slice of tomato—glistening with a layer of brown slime. Beneath it was a shred of lettuce, almost equally brown, pulling apart in stringy, wet fibers like waterlogged seaweed. One move too much, he thought, and it’s all over.

But the thought was beaten out by the reality that he had already made one move too many. He looked out over the gap between car roofs and almost laughed. A fool. I’m a courageous fool. But what does it matter to be courageous, anyway? he told himself. It came with another voice, more distant, but sweet as it carried on through the wind. “It’s okay, Daddy, I know you didn’t mean it. Stop telling yourself those things—there wasn’t enough time. You know that.”

And he did know. He could understand what each word meant, and it came with a beautiful relief that loosened his muscles. Or perhaps it was the rain. His crust had become swollen with water, and as he had feared so intensely before, the bread began to split and turn to mush. You cling to life like a fool, a more distant voice whispered. But in that moment, between the realization and the end of consciousness, that didn’t seem to matter anymore. He wished it all was nothing more than a bad dream. With eyes closed, Sandwich lay still as the darkness became all for a final time.

The house in the wasteland was being dismantled. The men in black suits had crossed the cobblestone walkway and were examining all they could find. Their eyes met with a dead man lying face-down on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own dried blood. The gray men expressed little interest in the ways of humans, but they peeled the note crumpled in the dead man’s fingers and studied its contents with no change of expression:

Daddy,

I’d love to have a sandwich for lunch, can you pack one for me since Mommy’s driving to work late tonight? Also, they’ve been saying at school how the war isn’t cold anymore. What does that mean? My friend Chester says it might be getting serious. But anyway, I’ll see you at dinnertime Daddy, I’m going to show Chester and his friends my stone collection. I miss you.

Love,

—Ben

They put everything inside their yellow bins, and as they sealed the final lid on the last of the ruins, the wind began to warn of another storm. With all loaded into their truck, they wheeled off into the approaching night.

Still, on Earth, there are the remnants of memories that linger in the air—a feeling of something human. It will forever remain in the soil and the wind, along with the scent of death.