skit #93: stewed tomatoes

Freda prefers fresh produce, avoiding the canned vegetables altogether. Her cart sails without friction atop the waxed floors, but Freda falters and slows upon Aisle 9. A grocer diligently stacks tiers of dull tin cylinders containing stewed tomatoes. Half-way through her shopping list, this ominous ziggurat suddenly and privately reminds Freda of her past torment:

The post-war rations were tolerable. Stale bread, suspiciously nondescript meatcakes, preserved foods without expiry dates like orphans are without guardians, dull tin cans harboring salty and sweaty possibilities -- cans of chicken stock, green beans, stewed tomatoes.

Sometimes I would have to steal. Everyone had to steal. To be alive meant to be fed meant to be a thief. On these grounds, any citizen was reasonably suspected of crime. And under a brutal interrogation, all crimes inevitably became public.

Many boys enlisted as soldiers from an early age to avoid being bullied. These boys caught me stealing butter. Under Soviet disorganization, their bayonets imbued them with the wisdom to serve as judges and jury. They took down a concrete alleyway for my nominal trial. Subject to their leverage, I confessed. I confessed it all. After all was said, my butter had melted.

Before my punishment, they recited my confessions as itemized evidence at her improvised trial. They snickered and hooted between the descriptions of each perpetrated act 'gross moral indecency'. The list of my sordid crimes suddenly and privately reminded me of my past pleasure:

I presented that stolen key which allowed our clandestine nightly rendezvouses to the cellar. It was cold, but Gretchin was warm. The salty and sweaty possibilities Gretchin presented to my lips. She was well-fed, allowing her muscles to harden more powerfully than any woman I'd known. How she flexed until her vitality was drained and she laid lifelessly. How no other woman could ever compare to you.

And suddenly, privately reminded me of my past sorrow:

I discovered her in the cellar, her beautiful crown savaged by a rifle butt. My last kiss upon her tasted of her fatal wound, salty and sweaty. She laid disheveled, probably intruded upon. Someone must have discovered her sins. Had she been caught with me, I too should be dead. Or had she been caught with another woman, my weak heart should prefer death. I buried these conjectures. Gretchin evaporated with her vital fluids. How no woman could ever compare to you.

I remained in a state of moral and emotional fatigue. I no longer questioned why I, of all thieves, had been caught. I no longer questioned if what I had done was wrong. I no longer questioned who held the right to judge me, my livelihood. The oldest soldier executed my sentence, while the others snickered and hooted most dutifully.

She recalls her distaste for stewed tomatoes. Freda casually passes Aisle 9 and crosses the final items off her shopping list.