The Sandwich-eater

Arja Salafranca

He never looked up, not once.

A tall, lanky Englishman boarded the train,
his face pink-white and young,
the jaw barely brushed by hair.
He unwrapped a supermarket sandwich,
carefully taking out the cut wedges from a plastic triangle,
and eating them very precisely, at a moderate pace,
carefully biting, eating and swallowing
each mouthful of brown bread with some feeling.
He never looked up.

He ate while staring at the floor of the
compartment, the black tunnel walls
whizzing past.
He ate the sandwich so carefully, as if it were
a duty he had to perform.
After eating it he put the plastic
triangle into a plastic bag, and extracted a
packet of crisps.
He looked at the crisp packaging: here, it seemed,
was the real pleasure.
He ate the crisps quickly, with less deliberation and
skinny jaws savouring the salty crispiness.
As he finished he put the packet away,
getting up for his stop.
He never looked up, not once,
even as the doors opened, and
he walked out,
stepping onto the platform.

Previously published in New Coin.

LitNet: 20 December 2005

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