{"id":18069,"date":"2024-11-27T16:06:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T22:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/?p=18069"},"modified":"2024-11-30T10:12:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T16:12:41","slug":"boiled-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2024\/11\/27\/boiled-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Boiled Down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Boiled Down<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-content-justification-right is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-765c4724 wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-facebook  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61556140010887\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12c0 5 3.7 9.1 8.4 9.9v-7H7.9V12h2.5V9.8c0-2.5 1.5-3.9 3.8-3.9 1.1 0 2.2.2 2.2.2v2.5h-1.3c-1.2 0-1.6.8-1.6 1.6V12h2.8l-.4 2.9h-2.3v7C18.3 21.1 22 17 22 12c0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-instagram  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/boudin_mcneese\/\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12,4.622c2.403,0,2.688,0.009,3.637,0.052c0.877,0.04,1.354,0.187,1.671,0.31c0.42,0.163,0.72,0.358,1.035,0.673 c0.315,0.315,0.51,0.615,0.673,1.035c0.123,0.317,0.27,0.794,0.31,1.671c0.043,0.949,0.052,1.234,0.052,3.637 s-0.009,2.688-0.052,3.637c-0.04,0.877-0.187,1.354-0.31,1.671c-0.163,0.42-0.358,0.72-0.673,1.035 c-0.315,0.315-0.615,0.51-1.035,0.673c-0.317,0.123-0.794,0.27-1.671,0.31c-0.949,0.043-1.233,0.052-3.637,0.052 s-2.688-0.009-3.637-0.052c-0.877-0.04-1.354-0.187-1.671-0.31c-0.42-0.163-0.72-0.358-1.035-0.673 c-0.315-0.315-0.51-0.615-0.673-1.035c-0.123-0.317-0.27-0.794-0.31-1.671C4.631,14.688,4.622,14.403,4.622,12 s0.009-2.688,0.052-3.637c0.04-0.877,0.187-1.354,0.31-1.671c0.163-0.42,0.358-0.72,0.673-1.035 c0.315-0.315,0.615-0.51,1.035-0.673c0.317-0.123,0.794-0.27,1.671-0.31C9.312,4.631,9.597,4.622,12,4.622 M12,3 C9.556,3,9.249,3.01,8.289,3.054C7.331,3.098,6.677,3.25,6.105,3.472C5.513,3.702,5.011,4.01,4.511,4.511 c-0.5,0.5-0.808,1.002-1.038,1.594C3.25,6.677,3.098,7.331,3.054,8.289C3.01,9.249,3,9.556,3,12c0,2.444,0.01,2.751,0.054,3.711 c0.044,0.958,0.196,1.612,0.418,2.185c0.23,0.592,0.538,1.094,1.038,1.594c0.5,0.5,1.002,0.808,1.594,1.038 c0.572,0.222,1.227,0.375,2.185,0.418C9.249,20.99,9.556,21,12,21s2.751-0.01,3.711-0.054c0.958-0.044,1.612-0.196,2.185-0.418 c0.592-0.23,1.094-0.538,1.594-1.038c0.5-0.5,0.808-1.002,1.038-1.594c0.222-0.572,0.375-1.227,0.418-2.185 C20.99,14.751,21,14.444,21,12s-0.01-2.751-0.054-3.711c-0.044-0.958-0.196-1.612-0.418-2.185c-0.23-0.592-0.538-1.094-1.038-1.594 c-0.5-0.5-1.002-0.808-1.594-1.038c-0.572-0.222-1.227-0.375-2.185-0.418C14.751,3.01,14.444,3,12,3L12,3z M12,7.378 c-2.552,0-4.622,2.069-4.622,4.622S9.448,16.622,12,16.622s4.622-2.069,4.622-4.622S14.552,7.378,12,7.378z M12,15 c-1.657,0-3-1.343-3-3s1.343-3,3-3s3,1.343,3,3S13.657,15,12,15z M16.804,6.116c-0.596,0-1.08,0.484-1.08,1.08 s0.484,1.08,1.08,1.08c0.596,0,1.08-0.484,1.08-1.08S17.401,6.116,16.804,6.116z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Angela Townsend<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I never have to eat a hard-boiled egg again. No adult of any species should even think these words. But you cannot betray yourself without philandering against language, and I have committed adultery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-medium-font-size\">It seemed reasonable at the time. Reason wears stain-resistant shirts. All I had to do was convince you that egg salad was not mandatory. I had logged enough years in Youth in Government to know the format:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-medium-font-size\"><em>Whereas<\/em>, I am a thirty-six-year-old woman possessed of independent opinions;<br><em>Whereas<\/em>, my senses, exceeding five (5), include one (1) colloquially known as \u201ctaste;\u201d<br><em>Whereas<\/em>, \u201ctaste\u201d maintains in its employ a complex gastrointestinal system;<br><em>Whereas<\/em>, the verdicts of \u201ctaste\u201d are not subject to appeal;<br><strong><em>Therefore<\/em><\/strong>, I am within my rights to dislike egg salad without further discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">But you are an obligate carnivore who cannot survive without the protein of further discussion. Unwilling to witness your demise, I went to market. You had receipts. I had overcharged my account before we kissed a single cheek at the door. Did I remember the price of my RSVP? I showed up at family occasions with a cactus called Type 1 diabetes. No host wants that. Your mother had to find a place for it every time. The least I could do was eat what I could eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cCan Angie eat this?\u201d Text messages came on eves, leering at holidays like buzzards. Your mother and sister sent screenshots of shredded meat. I could not determine the species. You would not recognize three decades of vegetarianism. A decision I\u2019d made at age ten was inadmissible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s low carb. There is no reason you can\u2019t eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">My betrayal took time because I underestimated yours. \u201cEvery human being has preferences!\u201d I bent my exclamation points into plowshares. \u201cYou think cilantro tastes like soap. My mother says coconut is an abomination. I\u2019m a person, too. I don\u2019t want meat. Just because something won\u2019t harm me doesn\u2019t mean I have to eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s good for you.\u201d You conjured concern. Very well, flesh could wait. There were eggs and their accomplices. You sat me at the counter to watch you whip ova to paste. \u201cLook, it\u2019s yellow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A color outweighed me. You reminded me I was too thin. Also, I had a pointy little nose. I took and ate. It tasted like illness at a garden party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIsn\u2019t it good?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSure!\u201d It was the wrong word. Enraged, you added more mayonnaise. I cleaned my plate. I brushed my teeth, keeping the water running so you would not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I made mistakes, and your spreadsheets grew fat. It was insulting to share a clip of Jimmy Fallon\u2019s repudiation of mayonnaise. It was irrelevant to note that my most Sicilian uncle allowed me to eat greens on the Night of the Seven Fishes. It was incendiary to allege, \u201cI am not a child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">My argument was invalid. I had Type 1 diabetes. On the night Mary found no room at the inn, I gnawed a rib your father made just for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Christmas Day, we saw my family, who saw no reason to waterboard me with gravy or sentence me to parmigiana. My mother made a salad deep enough for swimming. She included a half jar of banana peppers, neon halos hired for my happiness. You explained that my mother was a dotard I had bamboozled long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It is a fearsome thing to fall into your own hands if you have bound them yourself. One rib led to racks. I prayed for sinus infections before every holiday. The flesh of your flesh grew proud, cackling over the days when I \u201conly ate coleslaw and banana peppers!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">You could not release your tenderness. There are mandatory minimum sentences for Type 1 diabetics caught impersonating adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">If I made a veggie burger, you took my plate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s not hot enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou never cook anything enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">You burned the roof of my mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhy are you just sitting there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI just want it to cool down a little.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s dinner time. I\u2019m not going to watch you sit there. Eat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I learned to live in a house with no ceiling. I learned to buy sugar-free fudgesicles when you were out. I contemplated hiding them at work, communing with chocolate in a public bathroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThose are treats for a child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSnacking is as snacking does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">On Halloween, I wondered if I had earned your laugh for good behavior. I designed a salad around broccoli Frankensteins. I added a label: \u201cThe DisreGarden of Eden, featuring Rosemary\u2019s Baby Carrots.\u201d Nobody laughed. I slipped on banana peppers and spilled my bowl on your spreadsheet. I ate hot dogs your sister slashed to look like jagged fingers. I tested my blood glucose in the guest bathroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I suggested we split Thanksgiving. You were not opposed. Maybe you had a stitch in your rib. My uncle had a turkey. He also had a mandolin, and paper crowns for all who desired to be crowned. He presented peas as green as Eden. He had set aside a ball pit of them for me before he added sugar or butter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI know I\u2019m a pain,\u201d I acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">My uncle leaked trans-Atlantic expletives. \u201cWe don\u2019t listen to that talk in this house.\u201d My uncle took me to the garage fridge, where Diet Cokes stood thirty strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThat\u2019s a lot of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYour mother said they\u2019re your favorite. I know you don\u2019t drink wine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI know that\u2019s weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">My uncle pulled my aunt\u2019s pink scarf from the wall and wrapped it around his head like a Tuareg herdsman. \u201cIt takes integrity to be weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI just realized something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He was pulling a balaclava over the scarf. \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou look like the head of an international crime syndicate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThank you. What did you just realize?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I opened a Diet Coke. \u201cI don\u2019t ever have to eat egg salad again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">There is a time to shed headgear. My uncle became bald again. \u201cSweetheart, why would you ever have to eat egg salad in the first place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I didn\u2019t have to answer. I didn\u2019t have to partake in the bird. My uncle asked me to say the blessing anyway. I praised the God of peas and mothers. I felt my pointy little nose crack the wall. You can keep all your ribs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Angela Townsend<\/strong> is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, seven-time Best of the Net nominee, and the 2024 winner of <em>West Trade Review\u2019s<\/em> 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in <em>Arts &amp; Letters<\/em>, <em>Chautauqua<\/em>, <em>CutBank<\/em>, <em>The Normal School<\/em>, <em>Pleiades<\/em>, and <em>SmokeLong Quarterly<\/em>, among others. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College and writes for a cat sanctuary. Angela has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 34 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>__________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"438\" height=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg 438w, https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\">\ud83e\udca0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2024\/11\/27\/last-thanksgiving\/\">Back<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2024\/11\/28\/main-dishes\/\">Next<\/a> \ud83e\udca1<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">To learn more about submitting your work to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/boudin-submissions\/\">Boudin<\/a><\/em> or applying to McNeese State University&#8217;s Creative W<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boiled Down Angela Townsend __________ I never have to eat a hard-boiled egg again. No adult of any species should even think these words. But you cannot betray yourself without philandering against language, and I have committed adultery. It seemed reasonable at the time. Reason wears stain-resistant shirts. All I had to do was convince&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[75,173,14],"class_list":["post-18069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-feasts-nov-24","tag-boudin","tag-cnf-2","tag-cnf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18069"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18222,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18069\/revisions\/18222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}