A Hunger That Haunts Me

There are hungers we all recognize. The gnawing emptiness after skipping lunch. The quiet craving for sweetness that lingers long after a meal. The hollow ache for meaning in a meaningless world. But what I write of today is a hunger that transcends the physical, a hunger that eats at the soul in slow, corrosive bites.

A Hot Dog With A Nice Char

Last weekend, sitting by a campfire, I was seized by this hunger. Not for any boiled tube of meat, nor the limp creatures born of the steamer’s humid tomb. My hunger demands a hot dog forged in flame. Charred. Blackened. Scorched enough to carry the scars of its suffering.

It must bear the marks of fire’s cruelty, transformed and defiant. A hot dog that has stared into the abyss of open flame and not blinked. A hot dog I will hold until it crackles and blacks, until its skin is a brittle, bitter testament to its survival.

Mmmm

Some suggest pan-searing as a substitute. They don’t understand. The pan’s sizzle is a pale whisper in a void of silence. It does not roar. It does not consume. Only the open flame delivers the brutal, blistered glory that haunts my dreams.

Out there, somewhere in the world’s indifferent vastness, waits the hot dog I crave. Charred to a cruel perfection. Cradled in a bun toasted just enough to remember warmth. A smear of mustard, a whisper of relish, meaningless distractions from the truth beneath.

Until I find it, I exist in a limbo of hunger. Physical hunger. Emotional hunger. A spiritual void, scorched by the absence of that blackened bite.

I am starving.

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