Pot Belly

The sour smell of the basement resembled a garbage disposal. Flies, sweaty from the scorching summer, circled the fruits and vegetables, munching on flour and potatoes before settling on the compost bucket. They dined there for a while, finding solace and freedom away from human hands and a break from the endless circling air. After all, they were regulars, and that demanded respect.

The old man bustled around the kitchen, cutting thick slabs of butter and stuffing them into his mouth. When he'd choked enough, he grabbed a bottle of homemade wine from the side table, poured it into a glass, and downed it in one gulp. As the familiar taste of alcohol crept up to his stomach and head, he sat at the table and lit a cigarette.

Last week's dreams had exhausted him. He couldn't shake the most unpleasant feeling of disappointment of his life. He'd built his home himself, a false comfort for himself and his family. He had nothing to worry about, but he also had nothing to yearn for. Everything he'd ever dreamed of materialised within those walls, witnessing his deepest secrets and his failure to fail. His two adult daughters fought each other like soldiers from opposing forces in a war. He never understood why. Yes, he preferred the younger one, Melanie, over the older one, Frances, but that wouldn't change anything between them, would it? It couldn't. After all, they'd always had everything they'd wanted growing up, so he didn't feel guilty about it. All he longed for was their relationship maturing like the best wine. And this has never happened yet.

His wife, Sarah, entered the kitchen, gardening shears in hand.

‘I could use some help in the garden,’ she said lightly into the air. Receiving no response, she glanced at her husband. He studied various makes and models of cars while hunched over a newspaper. He expected political and automotive news, read cover to cover, to do wonders in his life.

As she began to prepare dinner, the man broke the silence.

‘Have you had your fill yet?’

‘What?’

‘That oil I bought at Farmer's Warehouse. They said it was the best. Aromatic, but mild.’

‘No, not yet. There's still the old one here; I'm finishing it. It expired a few weeks ago.’

‘When you finish this one, start a new one,’ the old man gave the order and went back to reading the newspaper.

Sarah trusted her husband to do everything right. While he was the head, she was the neck, allowing events to happen as he saw fit. And drinking a glass of oil every day seemed right. Of course, he'd read it in the newspaper. There was an ad saying that doctors recommended it and that it could prolong life. He couldn't be wrong. Not him.

She instantly forbade herself this useless daydreaming. She put the sausages in a casserole dish and lit a fire beneath it. Blue flames burst like gin from a bottle, clearing her mind. Pigs in a blanket were her man's favourite dish, and she didn't want to disappoint him. Same as lard, it was their constant companion on Sunday walks by the river after church. Some things just seemed right from the start, and no one needed to interrupt them.

Sarah often thought the doctors must have been wrong. Although she was a petite woman, her monthly check-ups revealed high cholesterol levels. She could never believe it. They were twice as high as they should have been, but Sarah wasn't worried. “The norms have dropped; that must be it,” she told herself each time she returned home from a doctor's appointment. It simply wasn't possible, and her husband surely knew better.

When their daughter Melanie arrives for dinner, everyone eats quietly, each in their own corner - the younger one in the modern kitchen upstairs, the older couple in the smelly but cosy basement. Everyone is content with their own little slice of comfort. Everyone except their older daughter, Frances, who is physically absent, but her emotional presence is felt in every nook and cranny of the house.

This idyllic atmosphere of life repeats itself for a long two decades, only to spin into the family's worst nightmare. The more distant one, Frances, noticed it first. As distance magnified the differences, she knew. These tiny cracks in retirement freedom moved like a fast car and went too far, as politics always does.

Her father's enormous belly stuck out more and more with each passing year. She noticed it, but couldn't say anything, mentally rejected by her mother and sister, and physically beaten by her father. In one profound moment, she had to choose between her own life and the lives of her parents. And their lives certainly headed for a disaster. She had to accept the facts, even if they were fixable. But if the ego prevents one from seeing them, the path becomes dark and slippery, with a deadly abyss in sight. Like her parents’.

A few weeks later, at the funeral, the priest spoke of a man with a kind heart and a fortune. He spoke of his independent nature, which went hand in hand with his professional life: fifty years of work, starting at sixteen, helping his parents survive and feeding his five siblings with the change his mother left on the refrigerator each morning. He spoke about a man who never gave up and made the greatest contribution to the development of society. Everyone gently nodded in tacit agreement.

Someone, however, had a different opinion, but no one in the community, especially the family, noticed.

Sarah experienced dehydration and a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, leading to her hospitalisation shortly after the funeral. Her husband may have died, but that fond memory remained with her like the softest snowflake falling on her skin whenever she needed comfort. It soothed her inscrutable heart, pumping blood to her vital organs, and refreshing her life every spring. This pot-bellied man left an indelible mark on her soul.