Starting to Write

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Before my shifts, I would eat at restaurants. I would eat pizzas loaded with hot, melted cheese and spicy red peppers. I would eat hamburgers and drink thick shakes, and play in the giant tunnel-slides in the playground. On my nights off I would frequent establishments masquerading as a man, listening to music and drinking ale. I would find myself eating kebabs after those establishments had closed with the rest of the evenings crowd.

Every now and then I would see a shape or hear a voice that made me think there were others like me out there on these nights. Not donkeys, I never saw another donkey, but sometimes I thought I heard the particular purr of a cat in a group of girls dancing. Or I caught a waft of scent, maybe a pig, in a group of businessmen playing dice in a corner. The kebabs were good and so was the company. But there was something else.

Working the night shift at the newspaper factory, I would see other sections besides the food and drink supplement. I would see the real estate. I would see photographs not of paddocks, or the dumpsters I slept in during the daytime, but great, big houses. I would see floor plans, and interior shots, and colour pictures of laughing families.

I began to wonder if I too could have a real estate. If I too could have laughing children and have people take photographs of us to use in advertisements for this real estate. I began to realise I needed a little thing called love. Butcwith only two nights off a week,chow was I meant to meet somebody to share all that with? Time had run away from me,and while I had been living a man's life years had gone by. I had not amassed much money because food and drink and cover-charges all cost money. I had not amassed many friends because I was scared of them discovering my secret.

I began to think I should return to the paddock where I was born. The secret of corned bread had not alluded me, it had been there all along. I had found it years ago, and it sat in a dusty wooden box in a corner of my current dumpster. I couldn't remember which corner at that moment, but I knew it was still there.

And then two things happened. A position on the day shift opened up and I met a boy who introduced me to a girl who then introduced me to her best friend, a woman. A real, live woman.

All thoughts of returning to the paddock, all thoughts of the dusty wooden box with the secrets of corned bread contained within, disappeared. If my story were a sad one, no doubt I would have met a nasty end or met some nasty men. No doubt that I would have remarked that it was them who were the donkeys and I who was the man, for they know not what a feast they have before them in this world.

But it's a simple story, mine. It's a nice one and although I was once beaten with a farmers stick and fed the plainest of food, I stand here today on my own two legs with my woman and my children. We're all laughing in the sun outside our real estate and if sometimes I might catch a waft of feathers from my wife, or occasionally hear her squawk when we have an argument... Well, who am I to judge? I, who was born a donkey, but lives as a very happy man.

"In Search of Corn Bread: A Memoir."