the smaller piece

The meat was sizzling. A particularly delicious sound and smell which made you anticipate all that was to come. I don’t have a deep, philosophical meaning behind that one; just that I was waiting for the delicious meal. It was a bitter-sweet thing to look at it. While I loved watching the gleaming red coal and the sizzling grille and the charring meat, I couldn’t wait for it to get done so that I could please my baser desires. “Oye Datta, Is it done already?” The yell that came from inside the room broke my happy contemplation. It was my lazy-ass room-mate. Just because I enjoy cooking doesn’t resolve him of all responsibility, but he obviously thinks it does. Somewhere in the back of my head, was the niggling rationalization that he paid for it too. I am a clerk you, see? I don’t make as much money as he does. Actually, I make in a month what he probably does in a day. So, we have this deal. I do the house-work. He pays. It’s symbiotic. He doesn’t mind because he doesn’t have to bother about house-hold chores. I don’t mind because I get to live the life that I can’t afford. Sometimes when I wonder what it would be like to trade places with him, I stop myself immediately. I wouldn’t want to. I have sorted it out in my head. He has money; I enjoy what that money can buy. He works 16 hours in a day; I work for eight and then the rest of it is mine. He has women falling for him all over the place; I don’t really mind. Allright, I won’t lie, I mind, but it is a small price to pay. Even the power, the luxury, the car, the credit card, the foreign trips are all a small price to pay. For those 8 hours extra of life that I live everyday. The meat was done. I took the bigger piece for him.