The other fills everything else

More about The other fills everything else

The fish tasted like rust and petroleum. Like somebody had dredged a river through an engine block and served it on a chipped plate. I sat there chewing anyway. Across town she was probably laughing with him, feeding him pieces of something clean. The fish flaked apart in my mouth like bad decisions. Every bite carried the smell of factories, rain-soaked asphalt, and old promises. The lamp buzzed. The city smoked beyond the window. I kept eating because hunger is a stubborn thing. So is grief. One fills your stomach. The other fills everything else. By the time the plate was empty, I couldn’t tell whether the bitterness came from the fish or from remembering her name.