How to Deal with Failure

The stainless-steel cloche was lifted in excruciating slow-motion; the appetizer hidden beneath revealed.

Ben could smell the wasabi with which he’d accidentally inundated his dish. It’d taken him too long to realize peaches and wasabi were good together, so much so that he panicked when he’d figured it out, putting something together that he was not remotely proud of.

Ben’s despairing gaze grew murky, cloudy. It wouldn’t be good if he cried, but there was no avoiding it. He wasn’t even listening to the host at that point.

Ben was eliminated first.

***

Drenched with sweat, Ben lurched from beneath his covers.

I’m in my room, he said to himself, calming down to the whirring of his fan. Hearing a train horn blare in the distance, Ben muttered a silent “thank you” that it had woken him. Enduring a few intense seconds, his breathing petered out, returning to a sound of normalcy. Ben greatly detested that nightmare. Relaxing his posture, he said it once more:

I’m in my room.

It was 3 a.m., meaning he wouldn’t need to leave for another few hours. He left his bed for a moment to retrieve a towel, which he draped over the damp indentation he’d left in the mattress. He then lay back down, aware there likely wouldn’t be any more rest that night for him. It’d been five years since that day, and it still came up in his dreams. Upon remembering, he’d rattle off the ways his dish could’ve come out better.

It was 5 a.m. when Ben decided: Screw it, I’m heading out.

He had a plan for how the day would go, but he figured there wasn’t any reason not to get it out of the way earlier than intended. Instead of spending more time in bed, his brain growing dim from neglect, Ben went through the motions to get dressed. After that, he had to pack. As he gathered the supplies in his worn, single-color backpack – duct tape, gloves, a lighter, rope, and gasoline – he could practically feel his body sag from drowsiness. Everything was in its proper place.

Ben crept downstairs, believing his grandmother would be asleep for another hour. Since he was primarily focused on keeping his footfalls light and avoiding the loose floorboards, he almost mistook his grandmother for an intruder when he noticed a dim glow from the living room out of the corner of his eye. She was watching the weather channel as she sank into her comfy chair. She did that sometimes. The low hum of their crappy Panasonic hung through the air as she craned her head to meet his gaze, then smiled at him.

“You’re up early,” she said. “Is there a problem at the animal shelter?”

Ben shook his head. In many ways, he’d been indebted to her, as she’d been the one to look after him when he was just a child. His father left, and his mother, who died shortly after he lost the Sliced Junior competition, had spent most of Ben’s youth in and out of hospitals. It was no exaggeration to say Ben’s grandmother had been his emotional rock through those times.

And that was why her next question stung so much.

“Oh… Well, would you like something to eat?” she asked.

Ben hoped she didn’t notice how he reflexively winced at the comment. He knew it was pathetic, that he shouldn’t care anymore about his failure, but despite everything, the mere mention of food preparation reignited the memory of the day he failed, the day when he couldn’t make his mother proud of him one time before her death.

“No thanks, Gram,” Ben said, his voice slightly trembling. “I just wanted to take a walk to clear my head.”

That was technically true, though there was more to it that he didn’t care to say.

Ben then collected some pre-made food that he’d stored in the fridge, as well as one of the kitchen knives from the counter when he was certain his grandmother wasn’t looking. After all, it would be unwise to keep any sharp objects at the location where he was going.

***

It didn’t take Ben longer than fifteen minutes to reach the tree line of the woods near his house. Ben was thankful he lived in a small suburb where the quaint little houses were spread out. It made leaving so early in the morning worth it, as there was very little chance of him running into others.

After he’d cried on Sliced Junior, it was inevitable that some at his school would target him. The few friends he had quickly distanced themselves, leaving Ben and pressuring him to skip several school days to avoid the ridicule, and when he was there, paranoia of being singled out for his weakness compelled him to spend his recess and lunch time amongst the bathroom stalls. And as much as he loved Gram, she hadn’t been all that helpful after he’d lost. She was too kind. She didn’t understand just how bad kids could be.

He was just thankful that he only had to endure the bullying for a semester, since he attended a middle school the following year that he’d specifically chosen because none of his classmates were going there. It was far removed from everyone else, and to his relief, people at his new school didn’t recognize him. Even if some did, they didn’t find it worth mentioning, which was fine by his measure.

Regardless, Ben’s elementary school experience left him averse to being noticed, blending in ever since then to the best of his abilities. Just being seen engendered great anxiety within him, even when going to work on a public bus. Perhaps that’s why he chose to hide his dirty little secret in the woods. It was how he adapted to relieve stress.

Ben swore to himself as he crossed a low stream. He hated how his mind would drift back to more unpleasant times, but his intimate knowledge of the path that he needed to take did enable his thoughts to wander.

The five-kilometer trek would take a long time considering how much he was carrying, and the bitingly cold fall air wouldn’t help matters either. Still, Ben wasn’t fazed. It was, after all, a journey with which he was extensively familiar.

***

Ben didn’t know how or why there was an abandoned wooden house so deep in the woods. He imagined it was originally part of a nature trail but was closed off due to the surrounding area being too far away from any popularly hiked trails. For Ben, though, the isolation was perfect for what he was doing there. Despite how loud things got, nobody ever came to investigate.

He let out a low whistle as he entered the cabin. The door had long since eroded, making it more of a formality instead of an effective barrier to entry. He opened his bag to remove some of the food he’d brought along: three bowls of beef stew. He’d need to refill the gas for the old stove, which he had been surprised to find still worked after first discovering the place. He placed the bowls on nearby counter, removing their Tupperware coverings.

Hardly any time after setting them out, the young beagle Shasta careened into the room, followed by a charging Bupkus, a hairless terrier missing an eye, and finally Blue, an old basset, to round out the trio.

They barked in circles around his feet as he refilled the stove’s nearby gas canister. He’d done his research on how to get it running again. And voila, he had fire. Ben breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like he wouldn’t be needing his lighter. He had little confidence in making a fire.

Ben left the dogs in privacy, staring at the stove as it heated their food. Meanwhile, he needed to work on the garden adjacent to the cabin. It wasn’t anything fancy, only 1.5 x 1.5 meters in size, though it’d been a passion project ever since the idea came to fruition. Putting on his gloves, he used the duct tape to seal up a side of the garden that had seemed looser after a recent storm. There was also a stalk of green beans that he needed the rope to keep upright.

Through the stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, he’d been stuck on that penultimate one for so long. To Ben’s surprise, it was in an act of frustration, a joke, that pushed him past it.

My food isn’t fit for humans! The only things that would bother with my food are damn dogs!

Little did Ben know just how much he enjoyed cooking food for dogs, fine-tuning them to find out which breeds of dog liked what types of meat and vegetables, right down to the balance of herbs to mix into the broth. In his free time, Ben would spend hours experimenting on his own brand of gourmet dog food, with a goal in mind that his brands would be superior to any competitors.

These three had all come from the shelter, and for one reason or another, Ben and his coworker-slash-confidant Trisha had difficulty finding them good homes.

Blue was old, and considering how little time she had left, Ben assumed the old dog would be spending her final days in the forest with her two friends. Overall, though, she seemed to be quite happy with how things were.

Bupkus was a more unfortunate case, having been thoroughly abused by a previous owner. With only one eye, it was difficult to find someone willing to take him in considering how small the town was. If there’s one thing that irked Ben more than anything else, it’s shallow pet-owners who turn their noses up at dogs that need help mostly because “they don’t look cute”. Ben had taken Bupkus to the cabin to give him some fresh air for a week or two.

And lastly, there was Shasta, who was also formerly abused, but unlike Bupkus, Shasta hadn’t sustained any permanent physical disfigurement. No, Shasta’s issue was that he had a crippling fear of people, getting into a fit whenever someone approached his cage at the shelter.

Ben pulled out a carrot from the garden. He’d been working on those babies for months, and he couldn’t wait to chop it into the stew fresh.

Ben heard Shasta’s barking as the little dog came out to meet him. It looked like he’d gotten bored. Aside from just giving him something to work towards, helping the dogs made Ben realize that he loved the little bastards. Spending so much time with them, he’d come to accept that he wasn’t a failure. He was just an eleven-year-old that was put into a stressful situation, and at the end of the day, there’s more to life than Sliced Junior. If he couldn’t pick himself up after losing, then that was probably the only truly pathetic thing about him.

Shasta had gotten especially better compared to when he’d first arrived. Trisha, who brought them food in the afternoons, had also noticed his positive change in demeanor. Unlike Ben, Trisha would usually just feed them the dogfood they’d already stored at the cabin.

All things considered, it looked like Shasta wouldn’t need to stay at the cabin much longer. He’d talk to Trisha later, but it looked like he was mentally sound enough to get adopted. He’d give the three of them one last night together.

***

Upon returning home from a long day, both out in the woods and at the shelter, Ben would have to fight to resist the urge to simply crash in bed. He really needed to get his license and stop Gram’s old car from gathering dust in the garage. Yet despite his exhaustion, Ben knew he had one more meal to prepare for the night, one for Gram and himself.