The Spoon

She wiped the spoon dry with the soft flour sack she bought last Friday as a treat for herself. They were all the rage for dishcloths. She wiped the spoon again and was about to nestle it, carefully, with the others in the designated cut outs in the cutlery drawer, and as she was about to place this soup spoon in the drawer, she hesitated, making sure it fit properly on top of the stack, fit without sticking up its bowl or handle because if the spoon did that, it might get stuck when she closed the drawer. The handle might hike itself up and get wedged as the drawer shut and when she needed to open it again, at lunchtime or at dinner, the drawer would be stuck, not able to open and she would not be able to fix it.

Like a mirage, her whole life shimmered in that action of placing the spoon properly so that the next time she would be able to open the drawer.

She had spent the entirety of her life making sure that every action should be a kind of prevention, an assurance, that the spoon would fit, snugly and correctly, that the drawer would open, and that the future would be safe.

Today, she waivered.

Waivered as she laid that spoon down, wondering how --in all her fifty years --she was not able to abandon this idea of preventing some future disaster and unwisely lay a spoon down, damn the consequences.

Unwisely not buy a new carton before the milk ran out

Unwisely not pay the phone bill early

Unwisely not kiss that boy in the elevator

Unwisely not plan the week’s dinners on Sunday

Unwisely not answer questions with honesty

Unwisely not set the table the day before

Unwisely not clean the lint trap

Unwisely lock her front door one afternoon and not come back.

BIO: Jody Falco writes flash fiction, stories and longer stories and lives in New York City.