Beans

The flat was a mess, again. Soiled socks and shredded tissues were shoved down various furniture crevices, and make-up brushes lay strewn beneath the mirror, their tops caked in powder from the morning rush. Breadcrumbs littered the worktop from toaster to sink, and the tap dripped, and dripped, and dripped. Cat hair clung to the carpet like Velcro and mugs teetered on the edge of tables, stacked precariously atop dribbles of cold tea.

Licia dropped a Tesco bag at her feet and watched as a can of beans rolled towards the table. It stopped. She stared. Her eyes felt comfy in her skull, like a mindless ecstasy. The stresses of existence drifted away and she became completely senseless, weightless. She couldn’t wait to eat those beans.

Licia didn’t have a particular affixation for beans or anything like that, she liked beans just as much as any other woman, a perfectly normal amount. Sometimes she had beans with sausages, or fish fingers, but she also enjoyed other accompaniments, like sweet corn or mushy peas for example. But today was a beans day.

“God, this house is a shit tip” Emma said, slumping into the couch, reaching under her thigh to reveal an Original Lucozade cap. With such a sense of normalcy, she flicked it across the room and it disappeared into the onslaught of disorganisation.

“Well,” Licia said “we’ve all got our shit. Maybe you could sort your own out every once in a while, ey”. She picked up the can of beans from under the table and put it on the counter. “I was thinking beans on toast for dinner, if you fancy it too?”.

“Can’t”

“What do you mean ‘can’t’?”

“I had the last slice of bread before work”.

Licia’s eyelids crumpled shut and her bottom jaw set tight. “Are you joking? Could you not have bought another loaf on your way home?”. Emma’s eyes rolled back into her head, so far that they could have tumbled into her skull.

“It’s not that deep, Leish, it’s just beans on toast”. She kicked off her shoes, cracked her back over the arm of the couch, and started her evening scroll through across the vast and lonely expanse of her phone. Emma laughed at a 10 second video of an obese cat whilst Licia etched a soulless stare into the back of her head. ‘It’s not that deep?’ thought Licia, seething, ‘is she mad?’. In that moment, Licia imagined shooting red hot lasers from her eyes, melting Emma’s phone in her hand, the very hand that grabbed the last slice of bread and gobbled it whole. Emma would be distraught, eyes fixed upon a pile of disintegrated plastic, her whole world burnt to a crispy, black mess. Yes, that’s what Licia wanted.

“You’re right, it’s not that deep” Licia heard herself say, her eyes fixed on the empty bread bag sticking out of the bin. “I’ve got a naff headache; do you mind turning the volume down on that?”. Emma grabbed a half-eaten bag of salt and vinegar crisps and dropped the phone into her dressing gown pocket.

“I’ve got work to do anyway, shout me when dinner’s done”. With that, she frolicked to her room, expertly navigating an obstacle course of wash baskets and bathroom products. The bedroom door slammed shut.

Licia looked again at the plastic bread bag, hanging limp from the kitchen bin. She closed her eyes and imagined a plump, white loaf in its place, steaming hot and ready for slicing. Her mind seemed to drift as she imagined herself, decked out like a1950s pin-up girl in the polka dot apron and gloves reaching for the oven. In her reverie she bent down - breaking the fourth wall with a cheeky wink before reaching inside - only to find something larger and fleshier than a loaf of bread. Smoke barrels out of the oven and behind the wall of black smog is Emma, coiling and crisping and contorting into various hellish shapes as she’s engulfed by flames. Her hands and feet claw and twist as they diminish into a pile of ashy carcinogen.

Licia smiled a little bit – somewhat regrettably – but it was fun to imagine these things sometimes; she’d never actually do them. The musky smell of the flat brought her back to reality, a reality where Emma was in her room watching videos that would cook her brain long before Licia could. She had a rummage through the cupboards to try and find something – anything – that would go with the can of beans. She had been fairly set on the toast pairing, but she would have to compromise. Much to her distain, there wasn’t a sausage or a fish finger in sight, only a pot of hummus in the fridge, and a Mars Bar. Licia felt like shoving that Mars Bar up Emma’s arse.

“I’m off out!” she heard Emma shout over the whirring extractor fan, “I’ll be back in a bit”. Emma slammed the front door and Licia let out a familiar sigh of relief. It was rare that she had the flat to herself and to be honest, as much as she tolerated Emma, she wished she would just bugger off for good, maybe meet a nice man on her way to shops and fly away to somewhere foreign. Better yet, if the man turned out to be a vile, murderous creature who planned to shove her body in the back of his Ford Focus then she wouldn’t be around to bother anyone else!

But she didn’t mean that, she never did.

Licia helped herself to the Mars Bar. Chocolate was one of those things that was supposed to taste good all the time, but it didn’t. The caramel was claggy and she felt the sugar wrap around her teeth like latex. It was effort to chew, especially having been in the fridge for as long as it had. Locking Emma in a fridge wouldn’t be a bad idea, one of those industrial, underground food bunkers that you can only open from the outside. Licia imagined how amusing it would be to toggle with the temperature gauge, pushing Emma to the brink of death and back again, day in day out. That’d teach her. Licia thought that maybe, if she was feeling generous, she would throw scraps of bread through the vents for her to feed on, given that she loves it so much.

Beckoned by the fictional presence of scraps and mealtime, the other household irritant appeared: Emma’s cat, squawking and meowing for his share of the pie. With another great huff, Licia rose from the couch and wandered over to the fridge. She was allergic to hummus herself, but it somewhat resembled the consistency of cat food. She tore off the lid and pushed it over to the scabby feline, who pressed his head into the substance before Licia could move her hand. She watched as the cat devoured the pot, back hunched and recoiling with every bite. She hated that thing, the way it stood on the countertop with its balls hanging out, parading itself around the place. Each time it licked its lips, it gagged on its food and wretched.

It was then that Licia conjured a thought so diabolical, it put the others to shame. In this inspired scene, she chopped and sliced and skinned the beast, its tongue flapping around its mouth, covered in hummus. She turned on the oven and once again gave a cheeky wink to the imaginary camera. She watched through the glass as the cat turned into a succulent roast beast - somewhat like a chicken but less plump. She laughed – roared actually – at the concept. She laughed so hard that she startled the cat. He kicked over the unopened can of beans and it went diving off the sideboard and under Licia’s feet. She tripped over the can and her arms flailed across the countertop where they met the pot of hummus. Spinning and twirling through the air, the pot landed on Licia’s face, houmous-side-up, caressing her chocolatey lips. The stench of cat breath would have been enough to kill anyone off, but Licia’s allergies acted quickly. Her face swelled, doubling in size, and her throat began to tighten. The cat looked on at the scene with vague curiosity, before licking his paws and assuming his usual rounds of the flat, bollocks out.

Licia grasped at the countertop and shifted through papers and packets, looking for her EpiPen. It was nowhere to be found. Panic set in. Suddenly, Licia dropped to the floor. ‘Damn you, Emma, and that bastard cat’ she thought as her head dropped to the floor and rolled towards the table, her eyes - once again - comfy in her skull.

A set of keys turned in the door. “I’m back!” shouted Emma from the corridor, once again dancing over the hoard of possessions towards the kitchen. “Thought I’d better pick up some bre-“