I'm scared.
Do I really want to this?
What if it's poisonous?
Man, I'm hungry. How do I get this open?
Brine, thought the man, swallowing the fleshy meat of an oyster while squatting on the ground next to the recently harvested oysters piled like stones at his feet. His skin prickled with cold from the waist down from wading out into the cold bay water to gather his dinner. He ran his calloused thumb along the smooth pearly finish on the inside of the shell. Then he flipped it over, slicing the pad of his thumb on the edge of the shell.
Multi-purpose, he thought. The shell could be used to cut things. The interior could be used for decoration. A necklace, perhaps, for trading.
The man made a small pouch of the fur skin draped across his shoulders and dropped in the rest of the oysters to carry them back to his clan camping further inland.
He wasn't dead from eating the oyster. At least, not yet.
How was he going to convince the rest of his clan that eating oysters was a good idea?
This is the interior monologue I imagine the very first man to eat an oyster thinks as he evaluates whether or not to eat it. This was a writing exercise courtesy of 642 Things To Write About.
What do you imagine the first man to eat an oyster thought? Leave a comment below.
