It Tasted a Heck Lot Like Unresolved Trauma

Lunch arrived with a grim sort of fanfare: the cafeteria doors groaned open like they were mourning their own hinges, and a ghost choir hovered over the lunch line, singing dirges about soup.

Ira stood in the doorway for a moment, scanning the crowd with the wariness of a porcelain gargoyle.

“Don’t eat the meatloaf,” Kiki advised, floating beside her. “It tried to bite a senior last week.”

“Did he survive?” Ira asked.

“No. He transferred.”

Ira accepted this answer with a shallow nod. “Where do you usually sit?”

“With the undesirables,” Kiki replied cheerfully. “We’re fun. We commit minor crimes and read bad poetry.”

She led her to a corner of the courtyard where a bench sat slightly tilted under a tree that had been struck by lightning at least three times. Probably on purpose.

Rommer was already there, chewing aggressively on a stick like it owed him money.

“Welcome to the loser zone,” he barked. “I got kicked out of the lunchroom for threatening the salad.”

“You barked at it,” Kiki said.

“It barked first.”

Ellian arrived late, holding a blood bag like a wine glass. “Thine gathering doth wound mine soul.”

“You showed up,” Kiki said.

“Verily, for I am both cursed with curiosity and worse company still.”

He sat down anyway.

Ira blinked at them all. She had not taken a seat yet.

“You can sit,” Kiki offered. “Unless you’re part statue. In which case, uh, respect.”

“I am not a statue,” Ira said flatly, before lowering herself onto the bench with all the caution of someone who expected it to disintegrate.

“Nay, not yet, though she percheth with the grace of a tomb angel. ‘Tis but a matter of time.,” Ellian muttered.

Nilo arrived last, holding a lunch tray he had clearly not thought through. The instant he sat down, the entire meal phased straight through him and splatted into the grass below.

He stared down at it. The mashed potatoes blinked.

Rommer pointed. “Dude. You dropped your dignity.”

“It wasn’t on the tray,” Nilo said mildly.

Kiki cackled.

Rommer leaned over to poke at the blinking mashed potatoes. They blinked again, this time faster. “I think it likes you,” he said.

“Do not befriend your food,” Ellian intoned. “That path leadeth only to ruin and vegetarianism.”

“Too late,” Kiki said. “Rommer made out with a cursed steak once.”

Rommer looked offended. “It kissed me first.”

Ira watched this exchange unfold like she was trying to decide whether to flee or file an incident report. In the end, she stayed seated, still, quiet, absorbing everything with the deadpan solemnity of someone waiting to be activated.

Rommer tried to eat the mashed potatoes.

They shrieked.

“Dude,” Kiki said, clutching her tray. “Did they just scream?”

“They squeaked,” Rommer corrected, nonchalantly chewing anyway. “That’s different.”

“Thou art a biological threat,” Ellian muttered, sipping his blood like a sommelier judging everyone.

“They tasted a heck lot like unresolved trauma,” Rommer added.

Ira blinked. “And you continued to eat them?”

He shrugged. “Tastes better than the meatloaf.”

“Do not insult the loaf,” said a voice from behind the vending machine. It was unclear whether it was the machine speaking or someone cursed inside it.

Nobody reacted.

Not even Ira.

She just slowly turned to Kiki and asked, “Are lunch periods always like this?”

“More or less,” Kiki said cheerfully. “Once someone’s spaghetti tried to unionize. We had to sign a treaty.”

“I’m not even sure if she’s joking,” Ira muttered.

“That’s the point,” said Nilo, who had phased halfway through the bench out of sheer habit.

Ellian sighed. “I hath dwelt among fools.”

“And yet you keep showing up,” Kiki replied sweetly. “You love us.”

“Alas,” he whispered, “I am plagued by fondness.”

And in the eerie silence that followed, the mashed potatoes blinked again.

“Aw heck nah,” Rommer said. “Fondness??”