The Plot and Structure of a Turkey Sandwich
You are stuck. Probably, there are still images vivid in your mind, but you can no longer link them together. They are no longer a part of any story. In your desperation, you start, for a moment, to write about a man sitting in front of a typing device similar to your own, suffering from a lack of productivity similar to your own. You are not the first to attempt this. You will not be the last. You have been told a thousand times to write what you know, and, at this very moment, not being able to write is exactly all that you know.
Wait. Feel yourself out, get a sense of your body, your environment, your feelings. Surely, you must know at least one more thing, you must know something beyond this most tired of cliches.
Your stomach growls.
You know that you are hungry.
Every character worth the words that make him wants something. Your protagonist must want something badly enough to propel him through the hell to which you are about to send him. You know about hunger. You know about wanting…
A delicious turkey sandwich.
So you are downstairs, in the kitchen. You’ve pulled the good bread out of the bread box and inspected your two slices for mold — better to risk moldiness than screw up good bread in the fridge. From the fridge you’ve retrieved your grainy German mustard. You smear it on thick. Lettuce and tomatoes are placed on the table, but not married to the sandwich; you eat a slice of each separately. Turkey and Mustard and Bread… a holy trinity of tastes… they deserve no flavour interference.
Lastly, you open the meat tray, and lo: There is no turkey there to speak of!
For every protagonist that wants, there must be a universe that conspires against him. You see, where you expected thick deli-chopped turkey meat, waits thin, grocery store roast beef slices, slick, and dull to the tongue. You must make a choice, eat now, in mediocrity, or move forward, overcoming whatever increasingly improbable obstacles rise before you.
This wouldn’t be a story if you settled.
You take your half-made sandwich carefully in hand, and in your trousers you stuff your Glock, and a keen butcher’s knife. You open your kitchen doors, and make your way into the woods. Somewhere, over the eastern hills, the prophets say, lies a field untouched by the hands of man, home to turkeys enough to feed man until the end times.
You walk for hours, over boulders the size of houses, and through hollow logs twice size of office buildings. Something had better force you to act, to make a decision; something must challenge you. You arrive at a river.
The river is as wide as an eight-lane highway, and roars savagely. You kick off your shoes and roll up the cuffs of your trousers. You raise the gestating turkey sandwich high above your head, and step into the water. You are barely ankle deep when the water’s tug begins to affect your balance. You are not more than an eighth of the way through, and the water is above your belly button. You strain on the tips of your toes to keep the sandwich as far away from potential sogginess as possible. This, a mistake. The water drags you off of your toes and then under. Your body tumbles and you thrash your arms wildly.
You are sitting on the riverbed, opposite where you entered, if a little downstream. Your clothes are soaked, your hair is soaked. The soaked sandwich disintegrates in your hand.
All is lost.
You rise to your feet, and check your trousers. You still possess your glock and butcher’s knife. You begin to walk. At first, each step is strained, deliberate, but you pick up speed, purpose. You enter the woods. The ground slopes upward.
If you didn’t face certain defeat and keep going, this wouldn’t be a story either.
You happen upon some grain, sprouting from between two rocks. You take your butches knife and cut it at the stem. You grind it up between two stones, and add water by squeezing out your soaked shirt. You build a fire, and this evening, you bake bread.
The next morning, after travelling even further up the hillside, you encounter a wild mustard bush. You squeeze out the remaining water from your soaked trousers, and grind the mustard seed. After letting it sit for a while, you spread the fresh mustard onto your fresh bread.
After a full day’s climb, you reach the top of the hill. The sun has just dipped below the horizon, and all life is bathed in the purple-orange glow of magic hour. The trees open up to a field. Before you a rusted wire and wooden stake fence barely stands. The wire has decayed enough to split in several places, and many of the stakes have toppled over. All of it, is nearly completely overgrown with weeds. In the middle of this grassy clearing stands a lone turkey.
You draw your glock and point it at the bird; you can feel the cold steel of the belted butcher’s knife against your skin. Your bread is fresh, your mustard is fresh, soon the trinity will be complete and you will feast on the finest freshest sandwich every assembled by the hands of man.
Your finger squeezes the trigger. And then, you are overwhelmed by the turkey’s majesty.
Its tail fanned like a peacock, it’s feathers striped like a bold tiger, it’s face decorated with the wild colours of a gaelic warrior, all in the subdued tones of the puritans. The turkey is the most regal of all galliformes. A pilgrim king.
The glock lands lands among the weeds, unfired.
You fall to your knees and weep.