Chapter 9 of the tale of Stewart and Joshua started on 11-24-09

Chapter 9 - Hunger

The room was still dark when Joshua woke up. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, though the ache in his knees and the cramp in his neck made him think it had been a while. He rubbed his eyes and grimaced as his stomach growled. It had been lunch the last time he had eaten. Now he felt famished and had no idea what time it was or where he would find food.

The hallway was filled with continuous noise. The lights just outside his room turned on and then off as people traveled the corridor. He could hear them, their shoes slapping or tapping as they walked, their voices carrying into the room in snatches and clipped sentences that didn’t mean anything to him as they passed. Eventually someone walked by with a bag of popcorn, the thick butter smell spilled into his room, and it was all he could do not to leave his hiding spot and beg for a handout.

And he had to pee. That realization came on fast and sudden as he tried to shift his limbs in the tight little space. How was he going to pee when the lights came on every time something in the room moved? And where? He stared out at the stools and counters and wished for an answer.

For several long moments he considered unfolding himself and running for the nearest counter. Doing that would set off the lights, but being under the counter would mean space and the ability to see better. His view from the tight little cubby was limited to the back third of the room and an awkward line of sight to the door. If he could see better then he might be able to figure out how to escape. He started to reach his foot out when the room lights flared on. A man had entered and began shoving a few of the stools around. Joshua pressed himself as far back into his hiding space as he could.

“Well crap,” the man shoving the stools muttered. “What the hell did I do with it?”

Joshua watched as the man glanced under one of the counters and then walked closer to the file cabinet.

“I could have sworn I left it in here…”

A drawer was pulled open on the file cabinet and then pushed shut. Joshua held his breath. Another drawer was pulled out, rifled through, and then shut.

“Huh,” the man muttered. Joshua could just see the tips of one of the man’s shoes. “Maybe I left it upstairs.” The man turned and walked out of the room and Joshua started to breath again.

After a few seconds of quiet Joshua peeked around the file cabinet. The lights were still on, but the room was empty. He unfolded his aching legs and stretched them out in front of himself, rubbing his knees and turning his head to take the kink out of his neck. The sounds of voices and shoes in the hallway sent him scrambling for the nearest counter and he pulled a stool in behind him. He was not hidden under the counter like he had been in the tight space between the file cabinet and the wall. If he moved too much at the wrong moment someone would notice and come take him away.

Shortly a woman in a long white coat walked past with an armful of books and papers. Joshua pulled his knees in tight against his chest and let the shirt cover his legs again. He hoped it would make him look like part of the floor. She never once looked into the room and after she passed he relaxed a little.

In the light of the room he was able to see the pockets on the shirt near the top and along the sides. He reached into one and found a pen and a small pad of paper. In another he found a tiny screwdriver, paper clips, and a black rubber stopper with a hole through its center. There were a few tissues in another pocket and in the last one he found a strawberry cereal bar.

Eating it was a challenge. Every time he took a bite or opened the wrapper a little it made crinkling noises. He had to stop each time someone walked by the room and it took almost ten minutes to finish it. In the end he sat with his legs tucked up, a smear of strawberry on his fingers, and an empty wrapper that he repeatedly dumped into his wide-open mouth hoping to get the last few crumbs still left inside.

~ Peace and sustenance

Abundance

Every once in a while I am struck by the sheer abundance that surrounds me. While driving home at the end of our summer vacation, staring out the passenger window and watching farm after farm pass by, I found myself overwhelmed by emotion. I was surrounded on all sides by a sea of feed corn, soy beans, wheat, and pastures dotted with livestock. We were traveling in a minivan, and yet, we were so small in comparison to the greenery and life all around us. And yet, all I could see, perhaps three miles in any given direction, was only a small fraction of what exists in the state I was traveling through. Add this to all the states that have similar landscapes and then to all the countries in the world and the entire thing becomes unimaginable. It’s a bit like trying to wrap your head around a trillion – 1,000,000,000,000.

I do this in the grocery store, especially in the produce section. I am standing there examining the tomatoes, or the lettuce, or the apples and I think, There are maybe 150 apples here and those are just the ones on display in the Braeburn section. There are probably at least that many in the stockroom waiting to come out to the floor. I am standing in one grocery store in one city in one state. There are at least 6 grocery stores in 3 miles of my home and each one has Braeburn apples. 6 stores x300 apples =1800 Braeburn apples. If I really think about it I can come up with 20 cities surrounding mine that have these same grocery stores in them. 20 cities x1800 Braeburn apples = 36,000 Braeburn apples. If I reach back into my 5th grade social studies lessons I come up with something like 900 cities in Minnesota. 900 cities x an average of 4 grocery stores per city = 3200 grocery stores x 300 apples = 960,000 Braeburn apples. On display today. The population of Minneapolis/St. Paul is something like 600,000. That’s one and a half Braeburn apples for everyone. Today.

Then I think, How many apples does an average apple tree grow in a season? Say 1000. 960,000 Braeburn apples / 1000 = 960 trees needed to grow all the Braeburn apples that were available for purchase in all the grocery stores in Minnesota today. Next week there will be that many Braeburns again available for purchase. There are at least 10 commonly available apple types at grocery stores. 10 types x 960,000 apples available in all the cities in Minnesota = 9,600,000 apples of all varieties available today in all the grocery stores in all the cities in Minnesota. There are 50 states in the union. 50 states x 9,600,000 apples = 480,000,000 apples of at least 10 types of apples available in the US for purchase today. There are 305,000,000 people in the US. 480,000,000 apples / 305,000,000 people = 1 ½ apples for everyone in the US today.

And that was just apples. When I look at the green beans and then the corn and then the peppers, I pop a fuse. How is it possible that anyone is starving when there is so much today. And there will be that much again and again and again.

~ Peace and abundance