Embodying

Chapter Four - Squash for Dinner

Eddie deaded.

'So, you and Dylan, huh!' Kurt was looking at Jane, but he wasn't smiling. His normally sullen face wore an expression that looked more like disappointment than anything.

'Ah, you told,' Jane said. She absorbed the knowledge into her being like sugar into coffee.

'Too juicy not to,' said Simbiatu and stuck the tip of her tongue out in Jane's direction. 'We don't get much news around here you know.'

Ed chimed in: 'I can't believe you did it on the floor in the clothing section, couldn't you have ...'

'Got a room? Rhymes with gloom?' Dylan was a Welsh poet. The words 'Welsh' and 'poet' influenced the way he spoke like petrol influences an engine. He couldn't help it. Didn't want to.

'I, for one, support you in your fine new relationship and wish you the best for your future, however short I think it may be.'

'Er, thanks, C. I think.' Jane looked directly across the table at Chizvinzwira's chest and then upwards towards his face.

'I only mean to say that our options here are limited and that ...'

'Yeah, I got it, C. Zombies, end of the world, biker gangs ...'

'Biker gangs? Where the hell did that come from, Jane?' said Eddie.

'What? Haven't you seen Mad Max?'

'Well, yeah, but ...'

'It's inevitable that during any breakdown of civilisation a new government rises to take control.'

'So that's automatically going to be biker gangs?' Ed's face showed his incredulity. The curtailment of vast swathes of the internet meant that he had to fall back on expressions he'd already mastered.

'Well, maybe not biker gangs per se, but certainly some element, lawless or not, that feels the need to take control. They have to achieve a monopolisation of the food supply first and so we're rather a plum target when you think about it clearly.' Jane looked around the table for signs of agreement or dissent. Finding, except for Ed's continued incredulity, nothing but forks busy with food, she continued her meal.

Ed spoke after a few seconds of silence, 'There's no way I can see us surviving here long term so yeah, biker gangs, why not.' He bent his head back to his food.

Chizvinzwira smiled to himself. Not a nice smile. No-one saw.

'Brilliant grub, Simbiatu,' Dylan interjected into the silence. He was immediately uneasy with what he'd just said. He was still having difficulty finding anything meaningful that rhymed with her name and refused to drop down to the diminutive Sim. Professional pride.

They took it in turns to cook, which worked because they each had different tastes and styles of cooking. It gave them a bit of variety to break up days with little else to celebrate. Simbiatu had gone for cheesy pasta with veg today. She'd countered Chizvinzwira's suggestion that she should cook something more traditional like jollof rice or garri by pointing out that she grew up in London; Islington specifically, and that pasta was as traditional as he was going to get from her. And besides, they were fresh out of cassava.

Fresh out of fresh would describe their food situation more accurately. In the three weeks since the world had been taken out by zombies, they'd figured which foods they should eat immediately and which they could keep for longer. First up was all the fresh veg and meat. Fortunately for whoever was on the washing up rota on any particular day, none of them had any particular allergies or weird dietary requirements. Having no vegan or vegetarians among them meant that everything could be cooked in the same pots and pans. The last thing you need at the end of the world is someone complaining that there's onion in their stew!