Art/Food
Charles Weinmorre stood looking at himself in a full length mirror. Santoni calf-skin leather lace-ups on his feet—check. Gucci men’s retro thin GG suit exquisitely matching his shoes—check plus. Head and beard hair debonairly quaffed; eyebrows tweezed with fashion week promiscuity; teeth whitened with such achromaticity to be preeminent within the feral daze of a polar vortex—check plus, plus. In other words, Charles looked like ten million bucks in the land of seven figures.
The only clue to Charles’ true self lied in his peanut butter brown, yet crimson flecked, eyes. Each of which endorsed his inexorable downward spiral of mental and emotional health. The result of said spiral was threefold. One, several recently deceased loved ones, including his twin daughters, Bella and Zarah, seven years of age. Two, the financial collapse of his business empire. Three, the ongoing degradation of his once loving marriage to fitness model, Wendi. Her own fractured psyche being hyper conducted into the living abyss by pharmaceutical drugs and rampant self-absorption. Of all of Charles’ concerns, Wendi was the most hopeless of cases. Thus he had scheduled a dinner date at New York City’s most exclusive of exclusive new restaurants. A non-veiled Hail Mary to save the only semblance of love in his life. A semblance that flickered in the darkness of a most obsidian night, like a deliciously deranged satellite orbiting the planet before it met its Challenger conclusion. And just then Charles’ wife spoke aloud.
Are you ready yet, Charlie?
Charles averted his eyes from himself to see his Wendi standing in the doorway, looking a good deal better attired than he. This look of what initially attracted him to her quickly morphed into feudal confusion.
Am I ready?
Yes. You, Charlie. I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.
An hour? I asked you thirty minutes ago if you were ready. You said no.
Wendi flexed an expression as if the argument was over a month ago, she had been declared the winner by unanimous decision and had already spent her prize money on frivolous things like butt injections and the best divorce attorney in the country. Charles had seen this look more than he cared to as of late. So without a word, he gave a polite nod of his head, put on a smile that was based on the memory of his favorite childhood cartoon Duck Tales and exited with Wendi by his side. The timeless marital issue of time was laid to rest like Kobe.
——
Charles and Wendi sat the in back of a moving black luxury SUV, each spouse staring listlessly ahead, like gerbils about to drift into slumber. An eery silence settled in like the Devil on a bean bag chair.
Are you excited, honey?
Yes. Very, she stated in the most faux of faux enthusiasm before searching the display for snacks.
Wendi dislodged a small bag of Skittles. Charles’ eyes lit up with primordial want.
Skittles. That was Bella’s favorite.
Wendi snorted a pinch of cocaine from one of her finger rings. Charles turned just a tad blacker. He gave up on his parental feelings and returned his gaze to being listlessly ahead thinking: this whole marital communication thing is not working. The SUV churned along, completely indifferent to anything but the pavement and the conductive decisions of the hired driver.
——
Minutes later Charles and Wendi, appearing to be the ideal couple of any major metropolitan city in the world let alone New York City, stepped up to the restaurant hostess. Said hostess—Montana—was good looking, but not too good looking to be taken less than serious with the proper angered accoutrements. Without a word Montana feigned recognition.
Wendi. Charles. Please. Follow me.
And without waiting to see if her instructions were being followed, Montana sashayed into the annals of the building with Charles and Wendi on her stylish but not too expensive heels. This sashaying journey took the doomed couple upon what seemed to be the annals of several different buildings but was only one. All the while a single song, John Lennon’s “Imagine,” played. No matter what passerby’s, loiterers, behind the scenes workers, or scenery changed, John Lennon could be heard at the same volume. Not too loud, not too quiet, but just right.
Finally Charles and Wendi arrived within the exquisite confines of ArtFooD. They were promptly sat at their table. The same as the other eight highfalutin Tri-State couples who sat in the same confines. Montana left with what Charles felt was a farcical smirk—a near snicker. He looked to Wendi to see if she had gleamed the same of the hostess, albeit without daring to utter a word of the sort. Charles found Wendi’s attention buried in her cell phone. He exhaled and waited for the first course. Twelve minutes later it arrived in a most unusual fashion.
——
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a pneumatic lift gave rise to a beautifully crafted caviar soufflé in the dead center of Charles and Wendi’s table. Said soufflé was crafted in such a fashion that one would’ve thought an architect of renown had designed it. The same such pneumatic action happened at each of the other eight tables. Leading to oh’s, ah’s, and in some cases more explicit sounds of delectability, which bounced around the restaurant like gold tinted bubbles. So much so that not a single person gave notice that the restaurant in which they sat featured no windows, clocks, or employees.
A Lennon-esque voice came bounding out of the sound system like a sedated baby giraffe: Please enjoy your meal.
And just like that the restauranteurs grabbed the appropriate utensils and dug in, only to meet the invisible force-field that protected each tables meal from consumption and thus, artistic ruination. This prompted a litany of cries and complaints that ran the gamut from polite to quite the opposite. All of which was to no avail. The food, in all of its artistic splendor, remained untouched. Wendi continued with her failed force-field punctures as Charles looked around with diluted wonderment, slowly piecing things together. That was until he heard John Lennon in his head, and his head alone, once again: Imagine there’s no heaven.
The untouchable food then returned from whence it came. The chatter died down. Looks and frowns rose. A moment later so did a lobster frittata into the dead center of each table.
Please enjoy your meal.
The force-field was the same as before. Frustrations returned with a fresh vigor. And the cycle continued—Japanese Wagyu Ribeye, Please enjoy your meal; Suckling Pig, Please enjoy your meal; Le Burger Brassiere, Please enjoy your meal. This continued for what felt like days but was merely hours, as time worked different in ArtFooD.
Charles had another Lennon thought: No Hell below us. And with that he looked around once more to see the gaunt and malnourished faces of everyone, including Wendi. Hunger was paramount and he was keenly aware that if not quenched soon many if not all would perish. Before Charles could recollect how he received his reservation, he found the handle of a freshly sharpened blade in his palm. As did everyone else. The speaker voice once again addressed the restauranteurs: Eat what you can or cease to be.
The silence of a Greek tragedy fell for some time, like a selfie fail at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Another Lennon lyric raced through Charles’ mind: Imagine all the people, living for today. And then cannibalism ensued.
Husband on wife, wife on husband, wife on wife, husband on husband. Blood and unimagined vitriol splattered about with reckless abandon. The hollowed chomps of human jaws quenching hunger upon human flesh. Sadistic Armageddon was swallowing civility whole. Charles did not truly fathom that he recorded the first kill when he severed Wendi’s carotid artery just before she could do what she had dreamed of for weeks. Only Charles did not consume Wendi. He simply gazed into her dying eyes without shedding a tear, before going to work with his blade. Turning Wendi’s deceased remains into an exquisite work of art on par with the Guggenheim. Tendons, ligaments, arteries and organs were used to create architectural wonders from the edible canvas. When he was done and starved beyond mental acuity, Charles came to realize he was the last living soul in ArtFood. Everyone else had been killed by their spouse or had succumbed to injuries from their recently deceased loved one. Though one woman, despite not sustaining a single injury had a fatal reaction upon consuming gallbladder. It was strangely and unequivocally etched upon her departed face.
The most handsome chef that Charles had ever seen stepped towards him from out of the shadows, both hands behind his back. A discerning grin of smarm etched amongst his impressive cheek bones. Each step a soft pounce, as if his shoes were made of baby lion paws. They were not. They measured each other up, ocularly, for a number of ravaged seconds.
Excellent, the chef stated with the same Lennon-esque tenor from the sound system.
The chef extended a Golden Opulence Sundae to Charles from behind his back.
For you.
Charles, without allowing his eyes to leave the chef’s, shook his head: NO.
The chef gestured his other hand toward a wall and a door promptly slid open, revealing a New York sidewalk flush with sunlight and sanity. Charles stood up, buttoned his Gucci jacket, which was fairly ill-fitting as he had lost more pounds that he cared to count and strolled toward the sunlight. The chef’s words, spoken and not sung, failed to cause hesitation in Charles’ exit.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one… No need for greed or hunger… I hope some day you’ll join us… And the world will live as one, Charles… As one.
The sliding door slid closed upon Charles’ exit. The chef returned to the kitchen. A crew entered to clean the restaurant for tonight’s reservations with the exception of Wendi, whose piece would be on display at a location of the chef’s choosing. It was his favorite piece to date. He estimated it would take years if not decades to find a better work of true art.
Imagine.
