Nuts

If possible, the peanut would indeed have looked back at me and blinked. It had become separated from its friends, and now could so easily be singled out. It let out a sigh, i n a metaphorical sort of way. A breath that came with the knowledge of an inevitible and immediate future it faced. I reached into the bag and selected him with my thumb and first finger. The silence was just as loud as the scream that may have come if the peanut was able. From the moment he was shelled, he could feel that his life was not meant for the forest, if that is in fact where wild peanuts roam. It had been a long, ominous trip to reach this demise. The picking, the shelling, the salting. All of these spelled an untimely end. And the peanut knew this. In fact, the trials of the tumultuous trip had all but sucked this nut's will to endure. Perhaps it's why he had become separated in the first place. I guess I'll never really know why, because peanuts have never been very good at explaining things. But I like to think it was a sacrifice. An undeniable act of altruism. Perhaps that hope is a sadistic one, however, as I think about the undeniably bittersweet reunion with his friends that will occur somewhere near my own duodenum.