Everybody Hurts

I am famished. I have a headache. With my right eye still closed in hope that I might be able to, despite the late morning hour, fall back asleep, I walk downstairs and into the bathroom to pee. I sit down to do this, far too fatigued to stand.

After flushing, I go to the refrigerator, open it, and drink straight from a two-liter bottle of mineral water. I have a pronounced thirst to pair with my fast-growing hunger, and while eating is a task too elaborate for my hungover being, water is near at hand and easy enough, even though a small stream of it runs down my chin and onto the gray sweatshirt I've slept in. I've had better mornings.

I walk back upstairs and lie down. I pull an electric fan close to me and turn it on. Ever since I experienced insomnia in middle school, the whir of a fan has helped lull me, even in the coldest winter months, to sleep. I draw the duvet tightly around myself and pray sleep will soon overtake me.

It doesn't. My stomach feels as though it is cavernous, and the extent of my hunger is much too strong to allow me to rest. Damnation.

I get up again and rifle through the legion restaurant delivery fliers stuffed into the kitchen drawer next to the stove. Although my appetite is voracious, nothing looks enticing. But I must eat, so I pick Choi's Kitchen. I have yet to try their fried rice gratin, and now is as good of a time as any.

"Hello?" a woman answers.

"You guys open?" I say, instantly hating myself for asking such a stupid question. Of course they're open -- it's almost noon.

"Yes, sir," the woman replies. "What would you like to order?"

"The fried rice gratin. And please make it snappy. I haven't eaten in four days."

Either she doesn't appreciate my humor or she thinks I'm serious. Regardless, I give her my address and hang up, like they do on television dramas, without saying goodbye. Then I sit down on the living room sofa and resume the book I'm currently reading: an airport novel about Cold War espionage, its two main characters double agents who have to choose between assassinating each other or abandoning their directives and assuming new identities in South America. Something I can relate to.

Enthralled, it's only when I finish reading page 78 -- Justin Gary's identity is about to be compromised! -- that I realize one hour has passed and my food still hasn't arrived. I reach for my cell phone and call up Choi's, ready to give them a piece of my mind.

"Hello?"

"Hi, I'm the guy who ordered the fried rice gratin," I say, my annoyance masked by an aloof air but subtly clear. "I was just wondering when it'll come."

"Oh," the woman says, and her concern in the matter cannot be more distant. "When did you call?"

"About an hour ago, like I said," even though I have said no such thing.

"Let me check."

Clearly, this woman knows little about me, nor does she care. If she only knew the superlative hunger I now feel, surely I would be treated to more than a cursory Oh. Phone Lady, I drank an entire bottle of Jim Beam last night, and from an early dinner of dried squid and peanuts until now, my stomach has been crying out for nourishment. Where is my fried rice gratin, you depriver of stomach soothing?

"Mr. Forbes?" It's her again.

"The one and only," I say. God, I want to spit into the phone's receiver.

"Our driver has had an accident. He's going to the hospital right now via ambulance." Then she adds, "Another driver will bring your order shortly, within thirty minutes."

"That's OK," I state bluntly. "I'm not hungry anymore."

Then I go into the kitchen and turn on the electric kettle. I have to boil water for cup ramen.