Leftovers

He shuffles into the apartment in a too-large overcoat and rummages through the pockets. The rain has drawn a soggy gradient across his shoulders and down his back. With one eye peering around the edge of her book, she looks for patterns in the spatter as he empties his pockets of keys, mail, and crumpled receipts.

As he turns toward the rest of the apartment, toward the kitchen with his dinner warming slowly on the stove, toward her, she tucks her face behind the book again. She licks a finger, turns the page, and says, without looking at him, "Your fries are still in my car."

I have a theory about leftovers. About scraps of all kinds, really.

People like to think that by wrapping these unconsumed morsels up and taking them home, they will feed themselves later. Or maybe feed their dogs. Or in the case of fabric, yarn, and other crafting scraps, the pieces will be woven into a future project. I believe that the intent is good and pure, but completely misplaced.

We don't really want to hold on to the tastes that will go cold and soggy and stale (and frayed, unraveled) in a number of hours. What we're really looking for is a way to revisit the experience of the meal. The ritual of moving food from styrofoam to plate, nuking it, then testing it gently with a fork (then pressing a finger to it, because you can't really tell with a fork if it's hot or not) before tentative consumption isn't about feeding yourself, it's about reheating the memories.

The fries from Friday night were never going to be as good as they were at the restaurant, but we took them anyways, believing that one of us would take them home and suffer bites of cold potato for the chance to close our eyes and remember the toast to toasting, sitting on phonebooks, and leaning close over a sideways table... all that preamble.