Hanging Legs, and Other Body Parts | Teen Ink

Hanging Legs, and Other Body Parts MAG

December 11, 2018
By isaluna27 SILVER, Palo Alto, California
isaluna27 SILVER, Palo Alto, California
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

“Six spicy Italian and five chicken sausages,” the mustached man mumbled to himself as he punched at the keys on the register. The clicking continued as Youza looked around at the body parts hanging from the ceiling, and her insides curled up.

 

The dark cave was crawling with fat ladies in their 60’s, angry men in their 50’s, and hopeful first-timers in their 30’s, all shouting their requests over the counter. She wished her mother had not sent her. She wished all she had seen could stay in that dark place, but when she stepped out and the sun fell upon her again, it was still on her mind.

 

It was six blocks from the butcher’s and she took her time before letting herself arrive home. Photographs of smiling lambs and calves had lined the walls of the dark cave, just as they now lined her thoughts.

 

At 6:00 p.m. she could smell those animals being turned on the grill by her father’s tongs. At 6:17 she laid eleven mismatched napkins around their too-small-for-eleven-people dinner table. Out came the array of Goodwill forks and knives, water glasses, and a pitcher of tap water. At 6:44 the siblings swarmed and pulled out the seats to their usual places. At 6:49, a piece of sausage and a slice of white sandwich bread was rationed to her. She stared down, and then up at her mother at the opposite end of the table, who gently winked. Glasses clinked. Everyone around her began devouring.

 

At 6:56 everyone save Youza had empty plates. She set her napkin on the table, flew up to stand on her Goodwill chair, and exclaimed, “I wanna be vegetarian!” All movement ceased and in the silence she felt ashamed. Her mother shook her head with closed eyes. Youza looked at her and without a word sank back into her seat and cut into her chicken sausage. 



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