Visitation

 

Liam Reese-Smythe was spending the cloudy Saturday morning painting over the water stain on his ceiling.  He was frustrated.  He’d found the right color and even gone to the neighborhood hardware store for a mixing arm for the can of paint stored away. But every time he painted over the water stain, it slowly reappeared, like some ghostly apparition.

 

As he stood on the upended crate placed on the couch for one last go, he heard the knock.  “Hello mate, what have we here?” The delivery man was cheerful not seeming to mind the narrow and steep walk up “Green Chef, hope you enjoy it!”  Liam noticed something funny in the way the delivery man walked to his van, but he was too interested in the food box to give it much thought.  Funny he didn’t recall ordering a Green Chef box.  Must be a friend worried for me now that Shelly’s left me, he thought. 

He placed the Green Chef box on the kitchen counter, and once again re-painted the ceiling, but within the hour the moth-shaped apparition reappeared.  His thoughts drifted back to the food box.  Now that the restaurants were closed for COVID the idea of making something new appealed to him. 

 

Nightfall descended, and Liam felt it was time to leave the stain for the moment. He always said, “I can’t work on an empty stomach.” With that, Liam went to the kitchen where the ingredients were waiting for him. Carefully following the instructions, he took the ingredients out and didn’t bother to wash the greens because the package promised a triple-wash.  Liam chopped the lettuce and cooked the pancetta and egg.  The salad was delicious.

About twenty minutes passed and Liam started feeling oddly.  His stomach was churning.  Briefly he felt on the edge of throwing up.  Taking one last look at the water stain on the ceiling, he walked upstairs to his bedroom.  The book “Metamorphosis” was on his nightstand.  He read a few pages and begin to drift off.  He hoped he would feel better in the morning.  And he was going to give the Green Chef people a piece of his mind, maybe earning a free box of food in the process.

Alexa woke him at 8:00am and he hopped on the morning Zoom call without showering.  He paid no attention to the Green Chef box still on the kitchen counter.  He paid no attention to the moth-shaped water stain on the ceiling. He didn’t remember feeling unwell or that he was going to call the company and complain.

No one on the call that morning noticed anything strange about Liam.  He was a bit quieter than usual, but it was Monday morning after all.  7 million people were surprised to receive Green Chef boxes that day, 10 million the next.  And no one who hadn’t yet received a box noticed that those who had had the legs of a giant beetle.  That’s the problem with Zoom, you don’t see people’s legs.