The Last Supper of Two Strangers

The cable bill sat on the kitchen counter like an accusation. Four months past due, highlighted in angry yellow—though whether the color came from the marker or the fluorescent kitchen light, David couldn't say anymore. He stood over the sink, rinsing spinach that had already begun to slime at the edges, watching the water carry bits of dark green down the drain.

Their dog, Barnaby, a golden retriever they'd adopted six years ago in what felt like another lifetime, lay on the kitchen floor. His ribs showed more than they should. David felt a spike of guilt—had he forgotten to feed him again today? Or was it simply that the dog, sensing something fundamental had shifted in the house, had stopped eating?

"You're making that disgusting green slop again," Sarah said from the doorway. She'd lost weight too. Her clothes hung loose on her frame, like she was shrinking away from herself. "I bought takeout. It's on the table."

"It's not slop. It's saag paneer. I thought you liked it."

"I liked it when we were twenty-five and pretending we were the kind of people who cooked things with names we couldn't pronounce." She stepped closer, and David caught the familiar scent of her perfume mixed with something else—cigarette smoke? She didn't smoke. Or maybe she did now. Maybe she did a lot of things now.

The television droned in the living room, cable news filling the silence they'd lost the ability to navigate on their own. Some pundit was shouting about the economy, about how hard times were coming, how people needed to prepare. David wanted to laugh. The hard times were already here, sitting in their kitchen, watching spinach rot in the colander.

Barnaby lifted his head, let out a whine that sounded almost like a question. David reached down to stroke his ears, felt the familiar silky softness, and for a moment wanted to weep at how unchanged the dog remained while everything else turned unrecognizable.

"I met someone," Sarah said.

The spinach slipped from David's hands. He didn't bend to retrieve it. He just stood there, watching it join the rest of the green mess on the linoleum, while outside, the cable continued to pump stories into a house that had already stopped being theirs.