Kipilefti

The tray of food sits in front of me on my bed, the mattress firm enough that my cross-legged weight doesn’t even tilt it. I look at the book in front of me, thinking that my reading here resembles compulsive eating more than anything else: I finished the five Janet Evanovich books my mother sent me in as many days, gulping them down like M&Ms. I don’t want to do that to the current book, a volume of Annie Proulx shorts, but there’s no middle ground for me. Either I’m chewing through a book or it’s drifting towards the bottom of the pile by my bed, forgotten.

I finish a story, put the book down, take a breath. Look out the window at the wisps of clouds drifting past, the placid masses approaching over the mountains like indefinite ships. I finish my mug of milk chai and look at the rest of dinner, no longer hungry. Tomorrow’s lunch, I think, and get up to carry the tray back to the kitchen. The bread that’s baking is lopsided and not done. I rinse out my mug at the spigot in the backyard.

When I get back to my room, the clouds have obscured the mountains.