Fiction Friday - Good Eats! (part 1)

 

Image courtesy of D.B. McNicol.

Ginger woke, feeling slightly groggy. 

That’s odd, I don’t remember drinking anything last night. 

She opened her eyes to a sterile room, dimly lit, as if to aid slumber. 

What DID I do last night? 

She remembered driving home from a client dinner and… what? 

Tentatively, Ginger tried to sit up on the firm – bed? Gurney? The blankets tightly bound her to the surface but loosened at the lightest pressure. As she sat upright, the light in the room rose automatically, almost eerily. Was someone watching? Ginger listened. “Hello?” The room simply absorbed the sound with no echo, as she looked around. 

Bare walls of the palest grey surrounded her. Glancing over the edge of her seat, she determined, Not a hospital then. Gurneys have wheels. Then, looking around more attentively, … and hospital rooms are jammed with equipment. This room had not even so much as an electrical outlet. The bed was in the middle of the room, with no windows, just one sleek grey door with a dark window set in it. 

She slid off the bed, realizing she was still in her dress from last night, but barefoot. The cold floor struck her as odd. The room didn’t seem cold. She must be above a refrigerator room or something. 

Mortuary. A voice whispered in her head. “Not. A hospital,” she told herself. Feeling her stomach, Ginger realized aloud, “Man, I am hungry! Whew. I could eat a horse.” Before the sentence had fully escaped her mouth, an invisible panel slid up in the wall near the door. In an inset, microwave-sized cubicle, sat a tray with a meal on it. 

Ginger looked around toward the ceiling, searching for cameras. “Thank you?” She said to no one in particular. She picked up the tray, looking around for somewhere to sit, and another, door-sized panel opened near her, illuminating a chair in an alcove, with a fold down tray. Resigned to deal with her confusion after eating, Ginger shook her head, bemused, and crossed into the alcove to eat. 

There was some kind of meat – beef by the smell – a pile of something foreign and greenish, and something resembling mashed potatoes. Not a fancy meal, but balanced. Everything smelled fine, and the tray was warm, the food steamy, so she poked the fork-spork thing into the potatoes to try a tiny nibble. 

“Wow!” They looked dry, but they weren’t. They looked bland, but they had a tang of something… she tasted more. Citrusy? Salty? Fishy? Not wanting to pig-out on the carbs first, Ginger poked at the meat. Some kind of thin steak or filet. She sliced into it with the provided knife, and a pink liquid oozed out. Juicy. Good. A tiny bite told her it was the most delicious, well-seasoned steak she’d ever eaten. Not technically steak though. The meat was undefinable, but it wasn’t beef. It had a slight tangy bite to it, similar to the potatoes. Maybe they seasoned everything that way. Maybe the green stuff was the same.

A nibble of the green stuff – Wrong guess! Dessert! Yum! Ginger focused on the meat and potatoes, but the sweet, spicy, green dessert tantalized her enough to take another bite occasionally. 

Her meal finished, Ginger twiddled her thumbs and walked laps around the small room, leaving the tray in the alcove, which closed as soon as she stepped away from the wall. “Who are you?” she finally asked the open air. It was a gambit, since her previous words had been met with physical response. She didn’t really expect anyone to speak up. No one did. 

As her next lap neared the door, she slowed to a stop and reached out a hand toward the door. “May I leave?” She waited, her hand hovering in the air near the middle of the door. An eternity seemed to pass as she stood there, looking uncertainly to the left, right, and up at the ceiling. She stood resolutely in that posture a moment longer than was comfortable. At last, there was a quiet whir and the door slid into a pocket in the frame. “Thank you!” she called out as she passed into the dimly lit hallway beyond. All was dark to the right and left, beyond this small patch that seemed lit from within recesses high up on the walls near the ceiling. It appeared that the hallway curved in a broad circle, based on her limited vision.

It's FICTION FRIDAY!
Every Friday, a new flash fiction story, inspired by reader comments, when possible. Feel free to leave a prompt for future use in the comments below. Today's prompt was "Good Eats" given by Liz A. of Laws of Gravity.

Come back next week for the conclusion!