" You're just a fool. A has-been. A washed up jester, who never got the punchline. All this time. Always lying. Everyone just stared at you and laughed. You were their entertainment. But now your jokes are routine. And you smell of defeat, of squander. Wall-eyed, wandering intoxicated and angry, rude. Gesturing for handouts behind backs, just in case an unseen observer eyes your thievery - scurrying rodential into cracked corners alone with your ever disappearing prize candy. "

The matte, dull metal of the unadorned, mess kit rounded fork reflected no shine assit closed the distance. Three tines rupture glistening orb in socket, surrounded by idiot's face, greasy. Even when screaming the mouth projected numbness. Right hand delivering present, left hand working the jaw.

Walking away, himself remembering he hadn't eaten today, The Messenger paused before mounting the stairs of the basement.

" The other one is on the table. "

*****

Confined forever now in darkness, however one measures forever, flab-shafted fingers ripped open greedy the threadbare drawstring bags lining the claustrophobic buried chamber. Each ration unique. Small, jagged, tar-coated granites. Rusted, unfinished thumbtacks. A dry, but soft and crumbling substance pungent with fungoid digestion of furred abdomen in felled, hollowed trunk. Used gauze offa burn victim, one side slick with sloughed off flesh. Burnt, broken glass, curved slightly, mixed with charred strands of sharpened copper.

Meals ready to eat. Custom made for those who prepared doomsday.