Eating Time

At last, after giving my boss the finger, I have landed in the cozy lap of unemployment.

In the first minutes of this day, time feels a bit raw, each moment longer than I anticipated dances in the palm of my hand.
My cat and I can now share longer gazes and give each other high fives. I watch him sit and putter, sit and putter, and then I do the same. My cat is my guru.
I sip coffee slowly; it perks up my brain juices and moves my innards down and out.
Sip, putter, sip, putter.

Everything seems dandy until I hear this bothersome voice in the back of my head.
It pinches at my spinal chord and echoes through my lungs.

Get up. Sit down.
Move. Stop.
Do something productive. Do something useless.
You’ll be poor. Who cares?
You’ll have to eat rice and beans for the rest of your life. As long as there is Tabasco.
Most people would have killed for a job like yours, why did you give it up? My boss was a sexist, unstable, abusive man. I have to savor a smidge of integrity.
I’ll never work again. Taco Bell is hiring,
You are a lazy lazy fucker. I am in dire need of rest.

I look around my apartment at all of the material possessions I have acquired after years of hard work. They were mindless purchases, fillers of the time that I was missing out on.
My refrigerator, brimming with sour, hums a deep electric burn. I open it peek inside, shuffle items around and give up on eating for right now.

After all, I will have all day to think about what I want to eat, to cook, and most importantly, to digest.