The night was cold as Joe stared up at the sky wishing for stars to shine once again. He looked down quickly, focusing on the cracks of pavement filled with minuscule specs of moss. Without a thought, Joe crossed the road. A speeding Mitsubishi unexpectedly came to a stop and honked its horn loudly.
“Get off the road!” She cursed something in Italian. The sound startled Joe, who still had his head down but he kept walking shadily.
As Joe reached the path he stopped on a small weed underneath a large ball-shaped tree. The scent of pasta travelled softly through Joe’s nose. At that moment Joe realised that he hadn’t eaten for almost a week. He’d just been so caught up in the divorced.
He followed the scent hypnotised, his only thought was food. He wandered deeper into a dark alleyway. Approaching a shady figure, Joe stopped dead in his tracks… The man was trembling, he had a gun in hand and tears down his face.
“Take it!” He shouted, throwing a thermos at Joe. “I can’t do this anymore!” Joe picked up the thermos remembering his mother telling him to never waste pasta. The man shouted again, “Go! Now go!”
Joe began to walk and ignored the sound of a gun being fired. Joe turned back and grabbed the gun out of the corpse’s hand, knowing that it could be useful on his journey home. When he reached the road, he stuffed the gun in his pocket and reached his hand out to the road hoping for a taxi. A silver cab pulled up, Joe walked in the front seat with a sigh.
Joe told the driver his long address and the driver asked for a pay. Joe didn’t realise this and he began to stress. He made his reckless decision and pulled out the gun, pointing it at the driver.
“Take me!” Joe demanded sternly. The driver backed away, almost falling out of the car.
“OK man!”
The car began to move, speeding around 40km/h above the speed limit. Not so long after, Joe had arrived.
“Thanks mate!” said Joe.
“Hope I don’t see you again!” Replied the driver.
Joe ran inside the house, placed the thermos on the marble counter and opened the thermos. He remembered that he had been soaked with muddy water from a truck before his taxi trip. He walked up the worn-out stairs of his house, hearing large creaks and cracks.
Joe stepped in his bathroom and grabbed a towel from a small cupboard. He dabbed the towel on his forehead, looking in the mirror he saw a single thread of spaghetti and he turned around. The spaghetti disappeared as he turned so Joe walked out, saw a pile of pasta and screamed.
“What the…” he gave a laugh.
Why’d I get scared, he thought, it’s only pasta.
He walked back to the bathroom and stared, frozen by fear. In the mirror stood a large ball of spaghetti behind him. He screamed as loud as he could until the pasta pounced and Joe was consumed by the saucy goodness of deadly spaghetti.
And Joe Philman was never seen again…
