The amount of stuff spilling out from such a small container seemed unimaginable. It shouldn’t have been possible for so much to come out, and yet, it was. It littered the ground with its contents in a haphazard manner with no clear pattern.
The Tattooed Man came across the remains, and instantly started scouring the contents.
“Pick whatever you can! We gotta hurry!”
“What’s the rush? There’s nobody else aro - ”
Just then, the crowd that had temporarily escaped their notice suddenly came out of their blind spot, and swarmed over the trail of barely edible foodstuff lying on the unsanitary ground. They were pushing and shoving each other in a mad rush to fill the hunger that hadn’t become apparent to them until just now. Friend and foe didn’t matter under these circumstances. All they could see was a smattering of nourishment, no matter whether it was edible or not, and a fierce need to keep it at bay until it no longer consumed their existence. Then, they could go back to thinking about inconsequential things.
For some reason, no one thought to trace the vehicle’s route back to the City where it returned to replenish its supplies.
The Tattooed Man and Girl managed to wrest themselves from the offending crowd fairly unscathed, but they had to throw some of what they’d picked up to distract them. Once they were a fair distance away, they allowed themselves to check what they’d got.
The Tattooed man examined the contents. “Hmph. No liquor.”
“I wouldn’t have thought of you as someone who drank to forget.”
“I don’t, but I enjoy the buzz. Besides, it’d be good cause for celebration.”
The Girl started to open one of the containers, when the Tattooed Man stopped her.
“Whoa whoa! Not so fast! Take a closer look at this can.”
She looked at the outside of the packaging, but apart from the company name and contents, didn’t see much interesting about it. “What about it?”
“There’s no expiration date. They’re extremely backdated in dumping this stuff out. A lot of these products haven’t been seen in years. This was made during a time when such labels didn’t exist. Now, what does that tell you?”
She thought about it for awhile. The three facts regarding this food she could still recall rattling around in her brain. Then she answered, “That it’s still good?”
“Exactly! So you don’t have to eat it right away! You can save it for later when you really need it.”
She eyed him with skepticism, but in order to appease him, decided to pack it away for later. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until now.
The Girl managed to scarf some of the lousy food down, even as it burned her throat, and threw away what she taste-tested, and didn’t like in a hurry. Even so, she managed to consume quite a bit. She ate so quickly that by the time she was done, the Tattooed Man hadn’t even started. In her current situation, she looked at his pile, and saw that he had more food, while she had none.
“You greedy pig! Keeping all that to yourself! Gimme some!”
“Whoa whoa! You already ate! Don’t you remember?”
“Sounds like something a glutton would say!”
“Oh really?? How do you explain all the empty foodbins behind you?”
She warily looked behind, seeing the pile of empty wrappers. “You probably fed me the scraps.”
“No, THESE are the scraps. You’re complaining about the quality of stale breadcrumbs. Do you even LIKE this stuff??” he asked, offering her some.
“Of course not!”
“Then what’s the problem??”
She growled with irritation. “I don’t like seeing people with more food than me!”
“Then you should’ve taken your time.”
Fuming, she sat down on the ground, and resentfully started licking the interior of the wrappers for loose foodstuff that she’d previously missed.
“Wise move. After all, we’re not spoiled for choice.”
She looked on with irritation and envy as he took his sweet time savouring every bite as if it was his last. Besides, she wasn’t feeling so hungry all of a sudden.
After what felt like hours, the Tattooed Man finally finished eating. “Do you have a toothbrush? Brushing after your meals is important, y’know.”
She looked inside her bag, which she was surprised she had, and again surprised to find some more reminder pieces of notes. There were only a few still left over compared to the large stacks she had before. But before she could announce her findings, the Tattooed Man made an uneasy sound.
“Oog.”
“You alright there?”
“I’m fine. I must’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me...”
While the Girl was looking for a brush, she looked at one of the few messages left inside her bag. “Maybe we could go to the City? They might have a cure for - ”
“Absolutely NOT.” the Tattooed Man bluntly said. “You don’t know what the City’s like. It’ll eat you alive. See if you’ve got some stomach medicine in your bag there.”
The Girl looked again, but given his overreaction, decided to take initiative. This time, she decided to tape some pages to herself, just to be safe.
“What’s taking so long?”
“There’s a lot more stuff in there than I thought,” she said, buying herself time, as she finished wrapping the note around her arm and covered it up with her sleeve. In the meantime, the Tattooed Man had curled himself up into a little ball.
The Girl didn’t think too much of his current position, until she noticed that his hands were notoriously close to his palm markings. “Excuse me, could you move your hands over there? I think they’re supposed to be this way...” The Girl positioned his arms until they covered the markings, and insisted that he keep his legs scrunched together.
“Aha! I thought so! There’s a hidden message here!”
The previously unreadable symbols that seemed so undecipherable now combined together to become legible. The Tattooed Man looked at a four-way cross section of his tattoos between his arms and legs that, still visible through the dirt on his skin, when pressed together at a certain angle, said, “Wanted: Mirrors”.
No comments:
Post a Comment