flipflop_diva

If Emily Widdleshiner had known her life was going to end at sandwich number thirty-one thousand five hundred and sixty-nine — literally — instead of at fifty thousand on the dot like she had been led to believe, she probably would have done things a lot differently.

But maybe we should start at the beginning.

Emily Widdleshiner came into this world on a very, very hot and very, very humid day in the middle of August. In fact, it was so hot and so humid that most of the townsfolk of Widdleshiner County (named decades and decades ago for Emily’s great, great, great grandfather) would for years to come speak about that day as though they had survived a truly great catastrophe.

“I remember my hair was stuck to my neck, and all I could do was sit by a fan!” old Mrs. McAllister would say to her grandchildren, who stared at her in awe.

“I felt like I was boiling alive!” older Mrs. Maplethorpe would chime in, and old Mrs. McAllister’s grandchildren would gasp in horror.

Truth be told, though, the heat and the humidity of that day wasn’t the important part. The important part was that Widdleshiner County’s very first all-sandwich shop opened on that very, very hot and very, very humid day when Emily Widdleshiner came into the world, and it was sort of like a foretelling of the future.

Because if there is one thing anyone needs to know about Emily Widdleshiner, it is this: The two greatest loves of Emily Widdleshiner’s life were the psychic vibes she claimed to have and her sandwiches. If you don’t believe this, ask anyone in Widdleshiner County, and they can all attest that Emily Widdleshiner lost two husbands, three children and her pet dog over these loves and she didn’t a mind one bit.

But we should get back to our story, though we need to jump ahead a few years to when Emily Widdleshiner was five years old and eating sandwich number twelve hundred and forty-nine, a delicious meatball sub made for her by her mother.

You see, Emily Widdleshiner’s mother had been making her daughter sandwiches every day of her life — sometimes twice a day! — ever since she was two years old, although Emily’s first sandwich — a grilled cheese — came by accident when she was just six months old. Emily’s mother had left little Emily at the table while she blended up some yummy baby carrots for her daughter. She hadn’t counted on little Emily somehow getting Mommy’s sandwich instead and squashing it into her mouth. But from that day on, Emily always reached for any sandwich she could see, and she screamed and hollered for months on end until her mother finally gave in, on Emily’s second birthday, and began to just make them for her.

But when Emily was five years old and eating her meatball sub made by her loving mother, something even more amazing than sandwiches happened. Emily had a vision — not a dream, but an actual vision, like a movie made just for her, dancing before her eyes — and in this vision, Emily saw herself as CEO of her own sandwich chain, aptly called Emily’s, eating her fifty thousandth sandwich, a four-layer spaghetti club (a special delicacy she had come up with!) on garlic toast. Emily then saw herself close her eyes, smile serenely, and drift off to ever-lasting sleep with spaghetti club crumbs still on her fingers.

When the vision ended, Emily was not scared or fearful that she just saw her death. In fact, it was the opposite. She jumped up from the table (meatball sub still in hand!) and ran to her mother to excitedly spill the details of her vision. Her mother was apparently so overjoyed she shed a literal bucket of tears. After all, pyschic visions ran in their family, Emily’s mother told her daughter, and the women in their family had been given the gift of them from a faerie generations ago.

Emily and her mother were thrilled that now Emily herself was carrying on the legacy of the gifted Widdleshiner women. They were also more thrilled that they now knew the reason they had been drawn to keep track of every sandwich Emily had ever eaten, all written down in perfect handwriting in a lovely maroon-colored notebook Emily’s mom had picked out at the drug store downtown when Emily was six months and a day old and screaming for grilled cheese.

From then on, Emily’s life was filled with purpose: more sandwiches and more visions. She saw herself marrying a baker (who she presumed would make the bread for her sandwich shop), all the tables at the reception gleaming with sandwiches while she gorged on numbers ten thousand one hundred twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and sixteen. But then she saw herself divorcing him with sandwich thirteen thousand and two in hand.

She saw herself giving birth, with sandwich number twelve thousand and seventeen on the bedside table. She saw that same child moving in with husband number one while Emily munched on sandwich thirteen thousand three hundred and nine.

She saw another husband and another kid. She saw a grandchild in the birth announcement section of the Widdleshiner Post. She even saw a dog who ran away, hobbling down the street after she screamed at it for stealing sandwich nineteen thousand off her plate.

But none of these visions bothered Emily at all. In fact, as one by one they came true, she welcomed them, for it was solid proof that they were real.

Of course, there was one vision Emily did not see — her third child, Ella Mae.

Ella Mae was a difficult child. Because as you see, Ella Mae hated sandwiches and, even worse, she did not believe in her mother’s visions.

“They are a hoax,” she would cry. “Why do you think Great-Grandmother Josephine hung herself after hearing voices? Or Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Mary was presumed crazy by the townspeople?”

“Nonsense!” Emily would yell back, covering her ears so as not to hear her daughter’s scandalous words. “The visions are a gift!”

“They are a curse!” Ella Mae would always reply, as if reading from a script.

Until the day the script changed.

That was the day Ella Mae and Emily, in the middle of Widdleshiner County’s very first all-sandwich shop, got into the biggest screaming match the people of Widdleshiner County had ever heard. They said their argument went on so long that people began to gather in the streets to listen. Some even placed bets on who would win.

“I will show you,” it is said that Ella Mae was heard saying, “that your visions are just a trick!”

And with that, Ella Mae stormed into the kitchen of the sandwich shop, the employees too startled to stop her.

Ella Mae was not seen for two hours, not by anyone, but then out of nowhere, she reappeared from the kitchen, walking over to her mother who had just polished off sandwich number thirty-one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. Ella Mae handed her mother a turkey and cheese on rye, with just the perfect amount of mayo, on a small lilac plate.

Emily Widdleshiner smiled then at her daughter, pleased her child had come around. She picked up the sandwich and began taking bite after bite, each one better than the last.

She smiled wider and wider as she chewed, licking her lips and sucking on her fingers to get every last crumb.

“Did you add something extra?’ Emily Widdleshiner cheerfully asked Ella Mae when she had finished chewing the very last bite.

“I sure did,” Ella Mae said with a warm smile.

“I shall have to add this to my sandwich shop menu!” declared Emily, because Emily was always talking about what she would add to her sandwich shop menu when she opened it (somewhere around sandwich forty thousand she would always say).

“No, you won’t,” said Ella Mae.

But as Emily Widdleshiner opened her mouth to persuade her third daughter to give her the secret ingredient, something unexpected happened. You see, Emily Widdleshiner, who had never been sick a day before in her life, suddenly felt her heart start to pound in her chest. Her vision began to blur. She felt weak. Cold. Nauseas.

She stared at her daughter as she slumped forward on to the table. And she stared even more as she slid out of her chair on to the ground. But just as Emily Widdleshiner’s eyes started to close, Ella Mae Widdleshiner stepped in front of her mother.

“I told you the visions were a trick,” she said.

And that is where our story ends. For the most part. We do know Emily Widdleshiner was buried a week later in the Widdleshiner Cemetery, the designs for her sandwich shop placed on her chest and her grave filled with equal amounts dirt and sandwiches.

Ella Mae Widdleshiner was never heard from or seen again. Some townspeople claim she never existed at all, but Emily Widdleshiner’s first daughter, Eloise Laine Widdleshiner, claims Ella Mae is still alive, living in a small town and running her own sandwich shop, called Emily’s.

And Eloise Laine would know. After all, she too has the gift of visions, and her mother’s love of sandwiches.

fiction.
or so they say.

Thank you for reading! This was written for Week 13 of the