By Ada Pelonia
The Angry Man doesn’t speak often, but the cemented floor rumbles from beneath as his flip-flops step on the tiling. The mugs from the cupboard rattle behind the glass when he prepares his dark coffee. Bowls of garlic fried rice and scrambled eggs turn into makeshift ashtray for sporadic spits and cigarette puffs. They look at the embers in eerie silence and force the acrid tang of breakfast to seep into their taste buds, settling into the trenches of stomachs bloated with jitters.
The Angry Man grits his teeth before his fists meet the side of their faces. He champions the proverbial adage, ‘actions speak louder than words,’ and leaves the table with a scoff after being on the receiving end of ‘How much did you drink?’ An aftertaste of iron streaks on the tongue as spasms suffuse their pallid faces. Labored breathing fills the round table, their gazes darting on upside-down plates and grains of rice splattered on the floor.
At the hospital, the Angry Man’s electrocardiogram monitors upticks in his heartbeat. A flat line before it hitches up again. It takes twenty more minutes of that before a doctor pronounces his time of death. The air settles. They sit silently on stainless steel waiting chairs, devouring Chinese takeout five floors above the mortuary.
Ada Pelonia (she/her) is a journalism graduate of the University of Santo Tomas. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Eunoia Review, and Gone Lawn, among others. She has been nominated for Best Microfiction 2021. Find her at adapelonia.weebly.com or on Instagram @_adawrites.
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