By Nadine Cruz
The food had gone cold. The fried chicken that Jana had bought from the convenience store was no longer crispy, and the rice had started to harden. Still, she slices chicken off the bone and sets it on her rice. She is careful not to break the flimsy plastic spoon and fork. She drizzles gravy on the chicken and rice before scooping it into her mouth.
She expects the gravy to be at least lukewarm when it reaches her tongue, but by the time it reaches her mouth, even the gravy has turned cold, too. She munches down her disappointment with her food, forcing herself to gulp it down even if she does not want to.
The cold gravy helps the chicken go down even with the coating turned tough. But the rice is stubborn, scratching down her throat. It takes three gulps not to choke on the rice and a spoonful of gravy not to let herself choke on air. She can feel the rice grinding down her esophagus, falling into her stomach like dry ice. She shudders when the cold hits her from the inside; it spreads—from the pit of her stomach, up its walls, bleeding through muscle, filling the spaces between her organs. She waits for the cold to hit her bloodstream. When nothing happens, she wonders if her blood runs colder than her food.
It wasn’t always like this.
Four years ago, when she first moved here, she would cook a new batch of rice twice a day: once for breakfast and again for dinner. She had never been the chef at home, but moving away for university had her trying out recipes until she became adventurous herself. Scrambled eggs and omelets. Spaghetti and alfredo. Fried rice with spam and yesterday’s leftover vegetables. On days when her classes would get suspended from storms, she would buy herself chicken breast from the grocery downstairs. She would cook rice in broth with garlic, ginger, and shredded chicken breast. Just the smell of it was enough to warm her stomach as it filled the room. Her food was always warm, always like a homely embrace. She had become a decent cook by her second year, and by third year, it was second nature to her. As her apartment filled with pictures and knick knacks from her university life, so did it begin to absorb the warmth of all the food she’d cook in her kitchen. Her apartment became more than just a place to stay during the semester, and became a place she made for herself.
Now, she sits in the dark at the kitchen table eating a meal she bought from the convenience store.
She had asked them to heat it. She always does. She told herself she should eat it as soon as she got back to her unit, so it wouldn’t go cold before she ate it. She tells herself that all the time. Then she came home and set it down on the table. By the time she opened it, it was already cold.
She eats it anyway. There are no ingredients in the refrigerator. She has not used the stove in months.
It takes her half an hour to eat a quarter of her meal. If anyone asked, she would say it was because of the rice. It has gotten dry, tough, like rice cooked with not enough water, or rice taken off the heat a little too soon. True, she could get a glass of water to make it go down easier. There is water in the fridge. But it takes everything in her to slice the chicken into bite-sized bits, and all the strength in her arm to scoop the food into her mouth. She could have heated her food in the microwave before eating. But it had taken everything for her to take a seat here at all.
The lightning flashes. The thunder rumbles.
She used to hide under the table when there was a storm. She would bring her toys with her and play under the table, and she would pull the legs of the chairs in like walls and gates of a castle or a fort. She would not come out until the storm was over, and even then, she would hide again at even a hint of lightning.
But then her father would make her rice porridge. He would crouch, peek at her from beneath a chair and between its legs. “Do you want lugaw?” He would ask. She would nod and he would pull out a chair. She would crawl out and take a seat, and while she ate, the storm could not scare her. The lugaw was always enough to make her forget the storm, to fill her stomach and warm her blood so that even if the lightning and the thunder came, it would not get under her skin.
Now, she just waits for the thunder.
The rice could have used more water, and the coating could have used less bread crumbs. She can cook better than they can serve it, and she knows this because she has done it before. And she should be able to—all she has to do is buy the right ingredients, prepare the cookware, prepare the stove. Instead, she sits eating convenience store food that has turned cold from being left too long on the table. All this because she can’t do something so simple as to cook herself a meal.
The rain drums against her windows. She hopes for thunder. Instead, her phone buzzes.
Her gaze lifts from her sorry excuse of a meal to her phone. A moment—there is only the sound of rain on her windows, the soft hum of the fan, the muffled sounds of the city. Then her phone buzzes again. Vibrates. The screen lights up to a call. The caller ID belongs to one of her friends.
Jana sets the spoon down. She gulps once, twice; even air goes down her throat like cold, hardened rice. She reaches for her phone, swipes a finger to answer the call. She puts it to her ear.
For a moment, she doesn’t speak. Then—
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
Their voices overlap. A chuckle comes out from between her lips. On the other side of the line, she hears her friend’s light laughter.
“I’m coming up. I bought some groceries and wanted to cook.”
Jana smiles at nothing in particular. “Why not cook at home?”
Jana hears the rustling of plastic bags and the thump of sneakers on tiles. Her friend is probably in the lobby, making her way to the elevators.
“I’d have to cook for five people at home. That’s a lot of waste if none of them like it.” “So I’m your guinea pig?”
A pause. An elevator ding from the other end of the line. Jana imagines her friend getting into the elevator and shrugging as if this were an in-person conversation rather than a voice call.
“You’ll just have to deal with it.”
Jana sighs. She begins to smile, but pauses when her gaze falls on her half-finished meal. It is not that the convenience store chicken is not good. It is quite good for its price, actually. And the rice is fine. And the gravy is decent. Still, the rice sits with barely a third of it touched; the single piece of chicken lies stripped of skin with less than a hefty chunk of the meat peeled away; the gravy is almost finished, with the bottom of the small container visible already.
“I bought some rice by the way. In case you don’t have any.”
“Good,” Jana says. She hadn’t bought rice in months. Her rice cooker hasn’t been used for about a year now. “I don’t have any.”
“I’m on your floor now. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Jana wonders if she should hide her half-finished meal away. Before she can decide, the doorbell rings, and she is dragging herself to her feet and to the door.
In the hallway, her friend stands with two medium-sized plastic bags full of groceries.
“Did you have anything in mind when you went shopping,” Jana says as her friend came in and took off her shoes, “or did you just get anything?”
Her friend pulls her in for a hug. Beyond them, the city is overcast with storm clouds and blurred by raindrops. “I had something in mind. And then it flew away.”
Jana huffs. “Typical.” She follows her friend into her kitchen. Her eyes go straight to the open container of food on the table. Her shoulders tense up. She waits for her friend to mention it, to ask why it is half-eaten, why she hadn’t cooked for herself instead, why it seems like not only the food is cold but also the kitchen, the floor, the walls, the whole unit, even Jana’s hands and arms, and why it seems like the cold is not coming from the rain, like even if the sun were to shine, this room would still be doused in gloom?
Jana listens to the rain. She waits for thunder.
“I’m not a great cook, but I can make you something tastier than that.” Her friend says. Jana breathes out. She raises her brows.
“And what are you making?”
Her friend shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll make something up on the spot.”
Jana laughs. It sits warm on her tongue like freshly cooked porridge. When she gulps down its echoes, it goes down easily; her laughter slides down her throat like rice and chicken in hot broth. It does not feel like choking. It does not feel like swallowing cold, hardened rice. She feels it hit the pit of her stomach, up its walls; bleeding through muscle and bridging the gaps between cavities. The warmth touches her through muscle and into bone. The wind from the fan becomes a little less icy, and the room a little less dark.
In the plastic bags are some garlic, onions, ginger, and eggs, as well as some chicken, canned tuna, corned beef, and potato chips. She had black pepper in her cupboards, and some cooking oil as well. She thought about the size of the pot they would need to make a meal for the two of them. She thought about whether a siyanse or a sandok would work better while cooking. She had a chopping board and a couple of knives. She had bowls for serving and tupperwares for setting aside and taking home leftovers.
“Lugaw?” Jana asks.
Her friend reaches up into a cupboard for a pot.
“Game.” Her friend says. Jana puts the tuna and the corned beef away and unpacks the rest on the table. When the thunder claps, Jana does not flinch. She smiles.
Nadine Cruz is an aspiring writer from the Philippines. When not buried beneath the coursework of her undergraduate degree, she writes fiction to try and put the life experiences of a twenty-something year old into words. She likes watching films and series, and often learns from them the kind of stories she wants to tell.
Hot Pot Magazine 
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