An Utterly Odd Perfectionist

von Marcus Krug

“I hate it when this happens! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!” I hiss through my gritted teeth. My whole body is convulsing, with my hands clinging to the table top, rattling the big piece of canteen furniture.

“Calm down, please, will you?!” the nurse says, “You should’ve checked today’s dietary menu on the board over there, then you would’ve been prepared.”

“I did!” I bark back, “But it was changed after breakfast this morning!”

I am really pissed off right now. I push the tines of the fork under the plate. I also put the knife under the fork to get a better leverage. Then I lift my fist. I am ready to lower the fist quickly onto the fork’s handle, when the nurse sweeps in and whisks the plate off my fork-knife contraption, just a blink of an eye before my fist makes heavy contact with the handle and sends the fork flying off the table, somersaulting, describing an almost perfect arch, before piercing into my favourite cactus on the nearby windowsill. I also hate it when this happens, although it does not happen that often. But still …

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no …” I start mumbling the nerve soothing mantra, when I slowly slide into rocking back and forth, while chewing my lower lip. I am sitting on both of my hand, to avert further damage, when the right one wiggles free – involuntarily – and starts excessively scratching the rash on my right temple. Fortunately, my fingernails had been clipped yesterday, so it does not bleed right away.

Less than a minute later, the nurse comes back and puts a new plate in front of me.

“Look what I’ve prepared for you.” she says with a big fake smile on her otherwise stern face.

The new plate looks nice. Every piece of food has its own place now. The three scoops of yellow mashed potatoes are on the left hand side of the plate. A small brownish sausage was put horizontally between the orange baby carrots and the green peas, which share the plates right hand side. Everything is perfectly separated from each other, nothing touches. I allow myself to relax a little.

I really like the arrangement of colours on the plate, but still, something strikes me as utterly odd. And then I see it.

There is one sausage, three scoops of mash and … I quickly pull two napkins out of the despenser and count the green peas and the baby carrots out onto them. Separately, of course.

When I count seventeen baby carrots, I tense up a bit. But the thirty-three green peas really push me over the edge.

“Odd numbers, I hate odd numbers!” I roar, “The food items on my plate are all odd numbered!”

Suddenly, my two fists come down onto the plate and the napkins, many times. A somewhat desired displacement activity. Although I want this, I do not concur with the dimension. I am in charge of not being in charge. It just happens and I let it happen without interfering, until I am satisfied with with the result, as well as repulsed. It is more the disgust for myself than the satisfactory quality of the outcome that makes me stop.

A little later, after I have calmed down a bit, the nurse stares daggers at me while she is cleaning up my mess. My dirty hands lie flat on the table in front of me, when I start humming and rocking back and forth again. The nurse is still staring at me. Her piercing eyes look at my manky hands and then her head and her cold icy eyes point into the direction of the bathroom. I lower my gaze and a huge wave of guilt and shame spreads throughout my whole body.

Still trembling like a leaf, I get up and go to the restroom. I turn on the steaming hot water, take the hard brush from the little shelf and scrub my hands and arms until they are perfectly clean – while the little mirror in front of me fogs up and the water turns crimson in the process.