Twelve Cans Beans | Short Story

Twelve cans beans.

Ditto lentils.

Twenty bags assorted grains.

Enough powdered milk to choke a donkey.

And then the jumble sale – the canned vegetables, the fruits, the canned meats. She sometimes thinks that it is the world’s worst tombola. They are brought forwards, these tin, flush against the edge of the steel shelves. Everything in its place.

There is a comforting airlessness down here. A silence. Everything is in its place. Everything counted, stacked against some half-imagined Event which would send them down here.

There is a solidness here, surrounded by earth and without the murmurations of the world above. She knows that it will not last forever, but it will last long enough, this island in the mind. She checks the plumbing, the filtration system, the use-by dates on the items within the first aid kit, even going so far as to catalogue the pieces in Monopoly in the oblique light threading its way down the ladder.

Eventually, of course, the calls sound from the open windows of the house above. Mum. Mum…Mum. This place is resistant to corrosion and chemical attack, groundwater seepage, moisture damage…not to noise, though, and she supposes that this is how it should be.

Wearily, she ascends the ladder and steps out into the sunlight, leaving her earthen fantasy behind with a heavy, metallic thunk.

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Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, Down in the Dirt, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.