Saltines for Isobel.

Each cracker was carefully inspected before she gingerly placed the corner into her mouth and bit down with enough force to snap it off, but softly enough to not make a sound. After each bite she would lick the salt off of her parched lips. It had been too long since she had known what a real meal felt like in her stomach. The fifth cracker was the last, and Isobel carefully wrapped the remaining morsels back into their crinkling plastic sleeve, tied off with the wide, flat, bright red twist tie. She hated saltines. She always had, but her desperate dislike and taken a life of its own since she'd come face to face with the real possibility of starvation. She was hungry, but she was young enough to still possess the will power she needed to survive. Five crackers is all she would allow herself at each meal, accompanied only by a bottle of water. It was of course tap water in the bottle, but she couldn't afford a glass to drink from so she had "repurposed" someone else's trash by cleaning it thoroughly. Some days she was even lucky enough to have chess to the freezer at work and she would enjoy somewhat chilled water when the hunger pranks were the worst. Desperate for both the Monet required for food and for a way to occupy her time instead of thinking about food, Isabel found herself volunteering for the thirteen and fourteen hour shifts at the call center amid wild corruption, stressful work material, sexual harassment and bizarre slander. About the time she didn't think she could take it anymore, something would shift. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different. Life was beginning to get the better of isobel but she refused to let it beat her completely. She thought to herself that life was very m cig like those saltine crackers: she might not have been happy with what she had to eat, but at least there was something to eat.