The Mallard God Complex (Chapter 2)

2. Breakfast of Champions

            Breakfast of champions is a trademark of General Mills. It is also the name of one of the finest books ever written. Kurt Vonnegut is an amazing writer.  I can only hope to - someday - stand in his shadow.  The following chapter has absolutely nothing to do with him, but does have to do with a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats, a trademark as well of the General Mills Corporation. It is for this reason that the chapter is entitled Breakfast of Champions, although it should be pointed out that this is in no way written with the consent of the General Mills Corporation, nor the sentient piece of cereal that hawks their products.

            That morning when I awoke I could smell her; there was the sweet aroma of her hair, the warmth of her skin, and the feeling of love burning within me in a place that hadn’t felt warmth in a long time. The bright morning sun shone through our apartment window and glinted on the brunette waves of her hair. I reached out for it and ran my hands through it. The image evaporated before my eyes and was replaced with that of Sheryl, occupying the spot that had once belonged to someone who had really meant something. There are truly few people in this life that truly mean something to us, and when they are there, we often fail to realize it.

            Everything about that moment when I awoke felt real to me. When I opened my eyes, I thought that she was going to be there. That warm, summer day where we had walked the path and spoke the words neither of us wanted to utter was merely a bad dream. The months of binge drinking and self-loathing were nothing but the shadows of nightmares past. I felt a fleeting relief at the sense. As was the case always, the past clung to itself and remained out of reach of everything but my imagination. It was a place that I would never be able to travel, and never be able to visit, except for in my dreams.

            I kicked off the covers and stretched to greet the new day.  My bones cracked in a multitude of places I’m sure they shouldn’t have. With dismay I took another look at the bed and found that it was indeed Sheryl who inhabited it. Sadness took a hold of me for a moment, and then morphed into a kind of grey cynicism. The world was my oyster, and I was the lazy harbor seal that was going to wait for someone else to crack it, only to club them with my flipper and gorge upon their hard earned bounty. It’s a seal eat shellfish world out there, and it takes everything one’s got to get by.

            Walking out of the room, feeling the hard wood creak underneath my feet, each step brought with it a flinch.  Scared  I might wake Sheryl and bring on a new onslaught of relationship problems  I was not equipped to deal with, I became a ninja. The house was no longer a tastefully decorated, abysmally small flat, but a temple filled with booby traps and snares. I looked shiftily at the walls, checking for confederates hiding in the shadows. From outside I could hear bamboo creaking in the wind. We had recently taken up a Japanese style of decorating and thought it would be complimented nicely by the addition of a native Chinese plant.

            At the end of the hallway was my fridge. In it were various food products including a nearly expired bottle of milk, a half-eaten wheel of cheese, and some eggs that had long since gone off that I didn’t have the heart to throw away. It was a bounty fit for kings, and one I was sure the rival ninja gangs would be after. While the contents of the fridge were both glorious and alluring, there was a far greater prize a few feet to its left. Sitting on the Formica countertop was a pale, orange box. Inside this box were tiny, brown wheat squares, held together by frosting and MSG.

            Even without milk they would make a workable substitute for a balanced breakfast, or at least would be enough to cull the raging hunger war that had begun in my stomach. I often find that when I have not eaten I devolve into a primal state, which isn’t much good to anyone, unless of course I was being filmed by one of those god-awful reality TV shows, but I wasn’t, and so it wasn’t. No, rather than being a good thing, it actually becomes quite a dangerous affair, and that day was no exception.

            Laced with the intense pangs of hunger and self-doubt my imagination had begun to take hold in a rather frightening way.   The floor in front of me was covered in tripwires, each leading without question to another creak in the floorboards, or possibly a fully functioning anti-personnel mine. Sheryl was a fairly light sleeper, I knew I didn’t have much time before I would be forced to make conversation with her, and before that point I needed that box and a cup of coffee.  Without either of these things the interaction would just devolve into an unpleasant catastrophe of sarcasm and passive aggressions.

            I sat at the end of the hallway for what must have been an eternity, planning my next move. Such is the way of my life, taking so much time to plan out the next step that by the time it is ready, the moment has already flown past in the unrelenting current of time. I know, I know there is a name for this condition, but more on that later.  The moment came, I was ready to move, I had all of the tripwires mapped, and the most silent route to the cereal was clear and within my grasp. I took the first step in a carefully choreographed sequence when from behind me there was a noise.

            The bedroom door opened, and all was lost to fate. “Good morning” I heard her say, slyly, knowing exactly what she had done. In the most passive aggressive fashion possible she had simultaneously ruined breakfast and caused me to miss a step, which led to the eventual stumble, which in turn lead to me being spread-eagled on the hardwood floor. It must have been quite the crash, because by the time I hit the ground she was at my side, concerned, and filling me with an overwhelming sense of loathing for doctors and nurses.

            It’s not their fault really; it’s just when she tries to play at nurse it kills me a little inside.  I don’t know why.  My head throbbed from its collision with the floor, and my mind ached from listening to Sheryl fuss over me. “I’m fine, really, it’s nothing. You just gave me a start that’s all.”

            “Well at least let me look at your head, what if you’re bleeding?”

            Maybe it gave me an aneurism that will take me away from this god-awful place once and for all. “Really, it’s fine! Look, no blood! See?” I said making wild gestures toward my head like a buffoon which to others might have seemed that I had hit my head a lot harder. I felt bad for her in that moment, I really did. She was doing nothing wrong, and yet for some reason I hated her for it. Irrationality is my caffeine and some days I need it on an intravenous drip.

            In the end she fixes me a breakfast which is certainly not the coffee and cereal I was hoping for. Rather, it is a combination of grapefruit, bran, and orange juice. None of these belong on the breakfast table, save for the orange juice, and only then if it is accompanied by bacon or a heavily buttered bagel. I ate the bran with the lackluster attitude of a man who knew he was condemned to it. When I was finished I got ready for work and prepared to head out the door. That was when the trouble really started.

            In my brain a tiny light bulb came on again. It was the same that had illuminated briefly the previous evening at dinner. I knew that I no longer wanted to be with Sheryl, and that going through the motions wasn’t helping anyone. It was for this reason that I foolishly uttered the following statement in passing as I’m walking out the front door as if it was no big deal: “I think we’re done yeah?” The statement itself was just ambiguous enough for misinterpretation, but the way in which I said it conveyed a tone of finality.

            I could have meant that we were done with breakfast, done with our morning chat, or even done with the dull weather outside, but I knew what I truly meant. “Done with what then?” Asked Sheryl, playing coy, trying to skirt the issue and maybe save it for a later date where it could be placated with sex. Unfortunately, that was not her lucky day, and I had just enough of a caffeine withdrawal to deadpan my response.

            “With uh, this.” I said, making a sweeping gesture around the room, indicating that I was finished with all of it. Once again my directness had sidled into the grey area of ambiguity. She looked at me quizzically, attempting to puzzle together what exactly it was that I meant by the statement.

            “What do you mean?” There was a quaver in her voice now as she realized that something was truly wrong. It dawned upon her that this was no simple argument and that it could not be solved by avoidance. The elephant in the room had suddenly burst forth from his hiding place and made the decision to stomp around a bit, to see if people would notice it.

            “Yeah, um, right, specifics. I don’t think we should be together anymore.” Her jaw dropped open. Even with all of the lead up, she hadn’t been expecting it. Well that wasn’t very tactfully done now was it? I gave her a shrug, indicating my condolences for her loss and then promptly walked out the door, down the stairs, and into the street. As I was crossing the street, it began to rain.

            My personal belongings came down with amazing speed, crashing to the ground beside me. There was nothing I could do but turn and watch. My life in tawdry Michael kick-knacks came sailing from the sky appallingly now in full public view.

            “What’s going on then?” A man passing by asked me.

            “Well I think I’m out of a house.” I said matter-of-factly. “And I don’t think I have much furnishing left either”.  I gazed upward.   The man shrugged and then walked away as my 1990s Walkman hit the street next to him. Hell of a day, I thought. I turned away from the apartment and continued my walk to work. There was no sense in trying to reason with her, and in the end it was all just stuff; things that I didn’t need and no longer wanted.