Chapter 2 wedge

I know what hunger is, I've felt it.When I was a child, after the war ended, I followed a group of people on the road, chasing after American trucks, and I stretched out my hands to catch the chewing gum, chocolate, and bread thrown out by American soldiers.As a child, I was so hungry for fat that I would drink oil from cans of sardines, happily licking the spoons my grandmother used to feed me cod liver oil to make me fat.I was so thirsty for salt that I would go to the kitchen and eat a hand full of gray salt from the salt shaker. As a child, I tasted white bread for the first time.Not the baker's round loaf of greyish-brown loaf, made of spoiled flour mixed with sawdust, which nearly killed me when I was three.The white bread I ate was square, made of high-gluten flour in a mold, very light, very fragrant, and the bread core was as white as the paper I was writing on.When writing on paper, I can feel the water in my mouth, as if time has not passed, and I am directly connected with my childhood.This slice of bread melts in my mouth, turns into a cloud, and as soon as I put it in my mouth I'm clamoring for another slice, and more, more, and if Grandma hadn't put it in the cupboard and locked it up, I could have eaten it all at once, Eat until uncomfortable.Perhaps nothing satisfies me more than this, and I have never eaten anything that satisfies my hunger so much and satisfies me so much.

I eat American Spam brand canned meat.Much later, I still have those metal cans rolled open with a small key, out of which I fashion battleships and carefully paint them gray.The pink minced meat in the can is surrounded by a circle of transparent aspic, with a little soapy smell, which makes me feel happy.The smell of fresh meat, the meat leaves a thin film of fat on my tongue, deep in my throat.Later, to others, to those who had never experienced hunger, this minced meat should have been synonymous with horror, with food for the poor.Twenty-five years later, I reunited with Meat Meat, in Mexico, in Belize, in shops in Chetumal, Felipe/Puerto Carrillo, Orange Road.This minced meat is called there carne del diablo, devil's meat.The same Spam meat comes in a blue can, and the package shows sliced ​​meat on a leaf of lettuce.

Sanhua brand milk powder is also.It should be a material distributed in the center of the Red Cross, a large cylindrical tin can with three rouge-colored carnations painted on it.For a long time, it was all about tenderness, tenderness and abundance for me.I scooped out tablespoonfuls of white powder and licked it, almost out of breath.Likewise, I can say it's bliss.Since then, no cream, no cake, no dessert can make me feel happier.Warm, dense, almost faintly salty, my teeth and gums were crunching and a thick liquid ran down my throat. This hunger is inside me.I can't forget.It exudes a certain sharp light that reminds me of my childhood.Without this hunger, my memory may not be able to retain this period of time, such a long period of time, the era of nothing.Happiness is something you don't need to remember.Am I unhappy?I have no idea.It's just that I remember waking up one day and finally being able to say goodbye to feeling full.This bread is too white, too soft, smells too good, this oil soaked in sardines runs down my throat, this crystallization of grains of gray salt, these spoonfuls of powdered milk in my mouth, on my tongue, A sticky mess, this is the moment my life begins.I walked out of the dark age and into the light.I am free.I exist.

The next story is about another kind of hunger.