{"id":8729,"date":"2023-08-12T17:40:41","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T23:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8729"},"modified":"2023-08-12T18:17:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T00:17:25","slug":"a-sandwich-for-george-orwell","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8729","title":{"rendered":"A Sandwich for George Orwell<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Catherine Kelley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m waiting for you, George Orwell, on this splintered bench just outside of London, the smells of the livestock market invading my nose. I can hear the haggling of customers and the quaint old cars running along the road, but all I care about is seeing you. At any moment you\u2019ll appear, on your way to the spike where you\u2019ll sleep tonight next to a tramp with a dust-blackened face and the stench of urine on his trousers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I look for your black dungarees and secondhand brown coat, I have to keep in mind that you\u2019ll be more than a decade younger than in the black and white photos I have studied in English textbooks. But, of course, I would know you in a crowd of thousands, your oblong face and thin mustache like poems I have memorized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my bag is the sandwich I\u2019ve dreamed up for you: English cheddar on homemade brown bread spread with real butter. I\u2019ve wrapped it in a white linen cloth as pristine as your sentences. On the bench beside me is a thermos of strong Ceylon tea, with milk and no sugar, loose tea leaves steeped in an earthenware pot . . . exactly as you like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These past several minutes I\u2019ve found myself continually smoothing out the wrinkles and folds in my dress\u2014an ankle-length sundress in lemon yellow that I hope you\u2019ll like\u2014and I can\u2019t help but glance at my watch again and again, but not because this waiting weighs on me like a Monday afternoon at my office but because I\u2019m counting the minutes until I can give you what you need\u2014the sandwich and the tea but also words that will sustain you. I want to blurt it all out right now\u2014that the plongeur<\/em> hell in Paris and night after night of tea and two slices here in England will not be in vain. In only a few years Down and Out<\/em> will be published, The Road to Wigan Pier<\/em> soon after that. One day, you\u2019ll be read by millions, Orwellian<\/em> will enter the lexicon . . . Of course, I\u2019ve decided to leave out a couple of details\u2014that you will spend months in a sanitorium coughing up blood and leave us only six months after the publication of your masterpiece. . . Wait. Is that you turning the corner? Yes, there you are, lanky 6\u2019 2, halo in full glow, but with none of the lines around your mouth I\u2019m used to. I reach in my bag and take out the sandwich. My hand is trembling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExcuse me, Mr. Blair,\u201d I say, almost choking on anticipation. \u201cWould you like a sandwich? You must be hungry.\u201d But you continue walking with your gaze straight ahead. \u201cExcuse me! I brought you a sandwich!\u201d I say, projecting my voice into the street. Without a glance, you stride past me. \u201cStop, please!\u201d With the sandwich in one hand, I run after you as though chasing God, stopping just short of stepping on your boots. My fingertips grace the arm of your coat, but you don\u2019t register my touch. I run several feet ahead of you, unwrapping the sandwich as I go. Then I turn around and hold the sandwich up to your face, but you walk right through me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t understand. Is this the arrangement? I can look at him, speak to him, touch him, but without him knowing that I\u2019m here? But didn\u2019t you say . . . <\/em>I squint away my tears, and now your figure is getting smaller in the distance as you walk away, taking my dreams with you. With my cold hands, I wrap the sandwich again, hold the linen cloth to my chest. I imagine Winston Smith gathering bluebells for Julia, his arm around her waist, their first kiss, Julia\u2019s note to him that started everything . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the sandwich is floating out of my hand, it begins to break up into molecules, like tiny bubbles, that drift upwards towards the gray sky. A wave passes through me, and I feel myself dissolving into light. Soon, an ocean and decades will once again separate me from you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

CATHERINE KELLEY<\/strong>\u00a0writes from Southern California and has had stories published in\u00a0Everyday Fiction, The Frogmore Papers, 805, East of the Web, The Blood Pudding,<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Bookends Review<\/em>. She practices Zen meditation, hoping it will someday help her forgive and the people who dump garbage on her street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catherine Kelley I\u2019m waiting for you, George Orwell, on this splintered bench just outside of London, the smells of the livestock market invading my nose. I can hear the haggling of customers and the quaint old cars running along the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8726,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8729","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2gN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8737,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8729\/revisions\/8737"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}