DIGESTION

The following is an except from DIGESTION, a podcast script styled project created and written by Hunter Davies.

Episode 5: Cereal Price

Summary: Owen performs a solo confrontation with a Meal

Setting: (The sounds of a busy park. Children laughing and shouting in play. Small bird chirps. The sounds of a dog barking far off in the distance scattered across moments of conversation.)

Owen: (Clears throat. Waiting. Tapping at knees.)

-The sound of slight shuffling of leaves.-

Craig, voice gets louder the closer he gets to Owen: Well hi there stranger!

Owen: (surprised): Oh! Um… Are you by chance the guy from Craig’s list?

Craig: Ha! You read my shirt! Knew it was a good marker for when I got here. Got to wear your favourite clothes for events like this, don’t you think? Enough of my babbling, you must be Owen from the call centre?

Owen: (Nervous and bashful) Yes! Uh, Owen Chambers. And you are-

Craig: (interrupts; forces handshake, clap of hands over Owen’s. Cheerful ecstatic voice.) Craig Cuttingham. Nice to meet ya!

-There is long pause between the two. Loud child squeal of excitement to break up the silence-

Craig: Alright if I sit next to you for this? These god damn crutches are quite hard to balance on.

Owen: Oh of course! Um, I’ll just set up the mic here then and- (sound of shuffling, mic bump and small metal scratch) Right, there we go. We’re recording now by the way.

Craig: (claps his hand together, rubs them in anticipation) Alrighty then! Uh, should I say my name again?

Owen: Please.

Craig: Right then. Uh, hello whoever this recording goes to! Howdy! I’m Craig Cuttingham from here in the lovely lone star state of Texas. And (long pause) Well, uh, I guess in a way this is my last testimony on this event. This clearly isn’t a video, so I’ll just note it for the tape recording here that I have only one leg now. Happened two Wednesdays ago. (Slight pause, nervousness) Is this good…?

Owen: Yes, just talk as natural as it comes to you, Mr. Cuttingham.

Craig: (nervousness continues, shy) Right. Ugh. Right! I Uh… gosh I’m getting a bit tongue tied now! Would you look at that? Usually, my buddies down at the bar can’t get me to shut up about anything! Ha ha! (long pause, heavy exhale from Craig) And yet this keeps me so shut up and quiet. Weirdest thing.

Craig, continues: Like I said. Me losing my leg happened two Wednesdays ago. I was at the supermarket. My wife, Lorraine, oh Lorraine. Lorraine is usually the one that goes and does the shopping. Likes to talk to her girlfriend Morgan at the till. Her form of gossip and news gathering versus me with my buddies at the bar. She got that bad COVID bug going around and had to stay cooped up at home for days. Had to fend for myself for the week, ‘step up to the plate and be a man’ as she put it! Oh Lorraine. God, I love that woman. I’m going to miss her.

(long pause) Anyways, I went to the supermarket for her, handcrafted list from my darling wife in hand. Got to make her proud by crossing everything off of it. And I was so close too. I was so close to doing just that. (voice strains in emphasis)

I was in the cereal aisle of that supermarket. Needed to pick up some of those frosted flakes Lorraine likes to put on her hashbrowns. If you ever make homemade hashbrowns you got to do that version. And while I was in there looking for those frosted flakes, I saw this woman. This woman. (spits as he says that word). She looked very plain. Corduroy pants, knitted sweater, ponytailed hair. Plain jane woman. Very earth tone driven. She had on these very reflective sunglasses. God awful things nearly blinded me when they hit the lights. That shouldn’t have been possible in that kind of space, but they kept catching a shine off of something when she looked over at me. I covered my face with my arm every time she turned her head. Uh, my right arm. It had the cereal box in hand you see. When I brought it down a bit, I could see my own reflection in those shades. All I could really see on that wrinkling face of hers was her mouth. And my god it was- I couldn’t- (pauses as he struggles to find the words, sounding destressed)

I’ve seen many a bad teeth growing up, alright? My old man, God rest his soul, was a dentist. Best in the state, the whole country you hear? So many awards. I’ve seen smoker’s teeth, rotted mouths, even mangled faces from fights with both man and animal that had to be repaired beyond him. Ain’t nothing I’ve ever seen that was as horrid as that women’s teeth. They were like a green tinted ivory, full of holes and- and I swear to God on this one. Swear on my dentist father’s grave- That nasty looking woman had maggots in her mouth. Those white vile things were all squirming about in her gums, her molars, incisors, you name it. She looked over at me and when she saw me, she grinned. Just grinned at me. Showed off them teeth in the biggest, awful smile possible. I was too focused on looking anywhere else but that mouth to see what else she could have been doing in that time. Hell, what she could have even said something to me maybe. Moving those maggots about, making me see those white things squirm in and out of her jaw as she talked. Like I said, I was too fixated on avoiding looking at that rotten maggot filled mouth of hers to see what she was doing. At least with her face. I do remember her making some sort of gesture with her hand when I looked away towards her side. Her hand kind of looked like she was curling in her fingers to make a fist perhaps. But rather than a fist it was all heavily curled and looked painful to do in practice. After I saw that, I just…fell.

There was this loud sound in the air when it happened. A bone crushing, teeth gnashing sound. I felt my body give way under me and found myself on the floor of that supermarket. I had dropped the box of cereal in my hand, breaking it open and begun floundering about on that there floor, trying to get back up. But the weight… the weight was all wrong. My weight was wrong. I looked down at the ground beneath me and the floor was just… red. Red and bright and wet. I looked behind me, looked passed my legs to see if anyone else was nearby that could help me up.

And then saw it. One leg. I looked at where my right leg should have been and saw nothing there at all. From pelvis down, no leg. I just had no leg. My pantleg there was cut like it was some of them girl short shorts. And beyond there being blood all over that cereal aisle floor, you never would have known that there was something wrong with me. The cut was so clean and oddly straight. No rounding around it just a clear slice away from the body. Blood all around me but no wound to have had it been from. Not cauterized, not sewn up with scarring neither, just a clean, sawn-off spot. I was on the floor with one less leg flailing about in a large puddle of what I could only guess was my own blood.

From there everything was a blur. That woman in those mirror sunnies was gone. One worker helped me up, brought me over a cart. Said, and get this, she said it was amazing I got all the way back there with only one leg. Didn’t mention the blood at all or where it came from. In fact, no one did. No one gave me any mind. And it wasn’t just at the supermarket either. My buddies never mentioned it. Not my wife Lorraine. Not even my mother when I went to visit her three days ago. Not one of them mention it or brought it up, not one word. Course I brought it up, tried to get somebody, anybody, to talk to me about my damn leg being missing. But the conversation just never popped off. It always ended with me talking to myself and no one paying me and my frantic state any mind.

(Tone becomes more deranged) Know what the weirder part is? When I was at my mother’s I look at pictures of myself and I swear I couldn’t find any that showed my right leg. Hell I didn’t find a photo that showed my legs at all! Every photo I could find would only go as low as my torso, never a full body picture. No photo ever showing me standing up tall and straight on both legs. And I know, I know, that I have pictures of such growing up. I know it! But I just can’t seem to find em. I just don’t get any of this. It feels like my mind makes no sense to me anymore. I’m seventy-six now but I know my mind ain’t going yet. I know I had two legs growing up. I know I was a two-legged man until two Wednesdays ago. And I know, I know that maggot mouthed woman took my leg. I know she has my leg. Someway, somehow, she took my leg in that cereal aisle. I know she did. (small pause, weary) I know she did.

(There is a waited pause too make sure Craig has finished speaking)

Owen: Is there anything else you’d like to tell me Mr. Cuttingham? Before you end it here?

Craig: Well, there is one thing (sound of shuffling to get comfortable) Do you believe me Owen? You don’t see me as just some… rambling old man losing his marbles, do you?

Owen: (slight chuckle) Does my opinion makes that much of a difference to you Mr. Cuttingham? For all you know, I could be telling you what you want to hear and not what I really feel.

Craig: Nah, I know your type. Can tell just from the look of ya. You don’t go through life as long as I have without knowing who to trust. I know you are the honest kind of folk. Even if you did lie to me, it’d still be you telling me the truth. Just in a different manner.

Owen: (soft, pained sigh. The tape is clicked off. The sound of soft shuffling is made before the sounds of a magazine clipping check along with the removal of a gun’s safety is heard.) I believe you Mr. Cuttingham. And I am sorry for this.

Craig: I know Owen. I know.

(a muffled shot is heard along with the slightly frantic sounds of scattering birds)

---

(The sound of a car door opening. There is shuffling in a car seat followed by the sound of the car door closing and seat belt clicking into place.)

Riley: (talking with mouth full) That took you a while. What gives?

Owen: The job.

Riley: (scoffs) Yeah. The job. Right. You were scared, weren’t you?

Owen: I wasn’t scared.

Riley: Yah you were. (teasing) You were scared! Scaredy scaredy scaredy cat! Owen is a-

Owen: (Interrupts) Shut up Riley.

Riley: Geez, what’s gotten into you?

Owen: I don’t want to talk about it.

Riley: (Unimpressed) Right. (Slight pause to finish swallowing their food). You know I could have done it just as easily.

Owen: This time I didn’t want easy.

Riley: And look what it got you! Wasted time and an even deeper hole of PTSD! (mocking) Congrats on needing more therapy!

Owen: (deep sigh) Do you want your Joy Toy Meal or not?

Riley: (excited) Oh yes please! We got to get the whole set this month!

Owen: (slight chuckle) Is that so?

Riley: Yeah! If you collect all the toys, you make a giant robot!

Owen: And what pieces do you still needing?

Riley: Oh, just the one.

Owen: Which one?

Riley: The right leg.

Owen: (long pause to process. Heavy sigh, cold response) Of course it is.

(sounds of car reversing before taking off)

End of episode