The old man pulled the last of the bread from the freezer just as the power finally died, his filthy hands trembling under its fading yellowish light.
In the darkness, silent beyond the raspy hiss of his breath, he scrabbled at its faded plastic wrapper. A grimy tallow stub was lit from an old corner-shop cigarette lighter, and the two slices were laid out beside each, in a space cleared hastily from an ocean of licked-clean cans and jars.
He shuffled over to his old cabinet, his back glistening yellow and black in the candlelight, and reached into the musty darkness inside. As he fumbled with the combination on the strongbox, his cat looked up at him from its basket beside the cabinet, its cocked head and eyes asking if there was any food tonight.
“It‘s a treat for us today, Kitty. The last there is, and I saved the best. No matter how hungry we got, we never touched these, did we?”
In his hands he clutched a glossy sachet of motel grape jelly and another of peanut butter, unblemished since the day he had found them.
“I’ll be having the first bite if you don’t mind, Mr. Cat, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty left for you, so do be patient.”
Turning away from the picked grey bones in the pet basket, he returned to the flickering circle of light where the bread lay fresh and clean as spring.
He peeled the foil off the peanut butter by half an inch, willing his twitching hands to move slowly and gritting his teeth against the urge to squeeze the whole thing into his parched mouth. Completing the removal and placing the foil on the counter, he tipped the block of paste onto the bread and spread it feverishly with his fingers. The candle flame, dancing on its last dribble of wax, dimmed.
As his books, his old mattress and his dust-covered chess set sank into the shadows, he covered the other slice in a thick, sweet slathering of jelly and wiped his hands on the reeking denim of his jeans. The old pipes in the roof moaned quietly as the wind blew through the old house up above, and the old man put the two slices together into a neat sandwich, before reverently bisecting it with a knife.
The candle guttered out as he lifted the first slice to his mouth, and the dark received the soft sound of his deep, perfect bite.
He chewed and chewed and then stopped for a moment to take a long slow breath, the contented sigh of his exhalation drowning out the distant howl of the poisonous wind. Putting the last sandwich in the world back on the counter, he swallowed once.
The next sound was the tiny click as he laid his finger on the trigger of his old revolver, loaded with his very last bullet. The rest had gone long before the last of the food, but by then there had been little need for shooting.
A muzzle flash in the dark, and mankind’s final work of art was complete.
