More Than Fries

There is no sex in this story. There are no people in this story. But there is something for those with open hearts who believe love truly comes in all forms. Even potato.

For the little girl who needed every fry to have a buddy, and for the woman who found hers. Let's see what's out there together, my jaanu. No cry (:

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The Box sizzled with anticipation.

They were all fresh, salted, a pleasant heat coming off them in waves. The excited chatter echoing off the cardboard centered on all the vague rumors that had bubbled up from their earliest moments in The Vat -- The Bag. The Fingers. The Selection.

Frenchy craned her tip, straining to get a look between the tightly packed forest of longer fries above her. She wasn't very big -- less than half the size of most fries. While their ends were crispy cubes or gently sloped cylinders, hers was a spear, crispy and pointed.

She didn't mind. She was proud of being crispy, and she made no effort to hide it.

But her stubbiness did have its drawbacks. She couldn't see what was out there, just the light yellow lines on the cardboard.

"Isn't this exciting?!" she said to the midsection of one of the taller fries she was crammed against.

They didn't respond.

She tried again with another.

"What do you think is out there?!"

No answer.

"I can't wait to see what's beyond The Bag!"

Nobody seemed particularly interested in talking to her.

No matter. That didn't bother Frenchy. Crispy fries didn't need buddies. Besides, no one else seemed very interested in what they would actuallydoafter The Selection. Not like she was.

She stared up at the small window between crowded fries above her, just large enough to make out a grease stain on the cardboard.

Whatever was on the other side, she wanted to see it all.

Every time she'd said that out loud, the other fries had looked at her like she was more than a little uncooked. The extent of their ambitions ended at being eaten.

Frenchy wanted more than that. Oh, sure, she wanted to be eaten eventually -- what fry didn't? But if their lives were just about being eaten, then why were they even transferred from The Vat to The Box anyway? Why not just get dumped straight into a mouth?

No. They were here for a reason. Or at least,Frenchywas. Of that much, she was sure.

Frenchy smiled to herself with that mouth only other fries could see.

All the other fries had paired up, fast friends since The Vat. She hadn't. She didn't need to. She wouldn't waste the time she was given. She'd find out what wonders lay beyond. And she'd do it alone, just like she'd done everything so far.

Before she could follow that train of thought, a thundering crackle above was accompanied by a blinding brightness that bathed The Box in light, casting a hush over them all. Frenchy jostled and jiggled, but couldn't see what was happening. Had The Bag opened?!

The hush broke into excited sizzles, and Frenchy was unembarrassed to join in. Especially when--

The Fingers.

The Fingers!

Frenchy tried to push off on the other fries, to shimmy her way up to the top. But everyone was trying to do the same thing, to angle themselves out so they could be chosen. Instead, she felt herself just sliding farther down.

She tried to keep her frustration from boiling over. This wasn't the end of the meal. She wouldn't become Leftovers. She'd heard rumors about that too, but in whispers. Something like being...reheated...wasn't even worth thinking about. Not now. Now was the time for positivity. For hope.

So she threw herself horizontal, making sure she wouldn't fall any farther, at least.

Two by two, The Fingers chose the worthy. The largest, longest departed first. That was expected. Then the others.

And finally, the fries just above Frenchy were removed.

Cool air basted her skin, and she breathed it in with the microscopic gills all French fries have. The unfamiliar scents hinted at miracles she couldn't even dare to imagine.

Above, Frenchy recognized the sky. She'd heard about it, knew it by its rich, bright blue. They didn't havebluewhere she came from.

What other impossible marvels awaited her?

A shadow crossed over her, obstructing the blue -- The Fingers, descending, closer and closer.

She braced, prepared for the moment she had been fried for.

The Fingers brushed against her, taking a few grains of salt with them, and she clenched her eyes shut, uninterested in quelling the grin on her tiny fry face.

But she felt the two taller fries on either side of her slide up against her, their shouts of glee taunts in her ear slits.

She told herself that was okay, watching The Fingers disappear, carrying the two fries to whatever promised land awaited. It was almost her turn. Everything she'd been waiting for, thateveryfry had been waiting for, was about to happen. She was ready to experience it all.

Frenchy trembled in anticipation as The Fingers dove once more into The Box. She was sticking up higher than any of her brothers and sisters, nestled on top of a few fries below. She grinned wider again, unable to keep her eyes from closing at the sensation of The Fingers pressing against her tingling skin -- and then they snapped open again in horror.

The Fingers shunted her to the side, foraging below instead.

No, no, this couldn't be happening.

The Fingers dug, grasping for larger, more worthy fries around her. She was too small to hold on, too small to wedge herself between her siblings.

"Wait,no!"Frenchy screamed, but The Fingers couldn't hear her. They didn't have ears, or a mouth, or eyes -- nothing like French fries.

She slid.

And she slid.

And sheslid.

The sky -- that beautiful blue -- slipped from her vision, obscured by the curve of the cardboard, and she felt her pointy, crispy bottom tip slide right through the hole in the lowest corner of The Box. For a starch-churning moment, she was afraid the rest of her would follow, but even she was too thick for that.

Instead, she was just stuck.

She tried to escape, tilting back and forth as much as she could. But it was all in vain. She couldn't even see up out of The Box anymore.

Trapped.

Frenchy watched helplessly as The Fingers lowered themselves into her narrow field of view, returning up with the few remaining fries -- limp. Cold.

No other fries remained.

The Box shook.

Frenchy screamed.

Despair echoed.

Then, hope, renewed.

The Fingers again, appearing in front of her, sliding greedily along the bottom of The Box, oh so close, as if searching for any stragglers -- searching forher.

She struggled with all her might to be noticed, to beseen.

But no one heard.

And no one saw.

The Fingers receded.

Shadow advanced.

Emptiness reigned.

Frenchy lost track of how long she cried, trapped in the cardboard corner, shedding salty tears in the particular way only a French fry can.

She was too small. Too crispy. So unnecessary she wasn't even worth searching for.

Alone.

Outside, she barely registered the scrapes against The Box. Whatever was happening in the rest of The Bag didn't concern her. Nothing did anymore. She wasn't even going to be reheated. She was simply to be discarded.

Acrumb, not a fry.

Suddenly, a tearing from above silenced her self-indulgent reverie. Before she could register that The Bag had opened, it closed again -- and something massive slammed into the bottom of The Box with a*THUD*.

Using the excellent eyesight all French fries are blessed with, she could tell what it was: a balled-up napkin, not quite big enough to take up the entire space, but enough that it was nearly all she could see.

Trash. Just like her.

The Bag was closed.

The Selection ended.

Quiet descended.

Here she would decompose, a discarded napkin her only company.

It was entirely her fault, of course. Sure, she was small. She was crispy. But that didn't mean she couldn't have made friends. A buddy. The Fingers had taken the others two by two. She could have found a longer partner, could have stayed close to one who didn't mind her so much and then The Fingers might have taken her too.

Instead....

Frenchy couldn't help herself. Her cries turned to sobs, beads of grease running down her rigid exterior. No one could see them fall, no one could hear her muffled sniffles. But she felt shame all the same.

*CLOMP, SCRAAAAAPE*

She froze, mid-sob. Scraping on the cardboard, on the other side of the napkin ball.

What was that sound?

She held her breath, trying to listen.

*CLOMP, SCRAAAAAPE*

It repeated, closer. And closer again. The napkin obscured her view, and the curve of the cardboard kept her from seeing around it.

"H-hello? Is...is someone out there?"

No answer. Just another*CLOMP, SCRAAAAAPE*echoing around the empty Box.

She was trembling now, still lodged in her corner. What had the napkin brought with it?

*CLOMP, SCRAAAAAPE*

Frenchy tried to keep her whimpering to a minimum while she frantically resumed her doomed attempts at shimmying out of the trap. Whatever was coming for her, it was close.

*CLOMP, SCRAAAAAPE*

She looked up into the shadow. And she froze.

A fry peered down at her, curious. His end was limp and browned, a neck so pinched and devoid of potato that its head needed to be swung to move at all. She couldn't quite read the expression on his salt lines, but slowly, he extended further down into her corner.

Reflexively, Frenchy flinched backward, trying to jam herself farther down into the hole she had been trying desperately to escape.

The strange fry stopped, then retracted a little as if he'd been singed.

She sniffled some salt away from her fry nostril.

"W-wait, don't leave!" she stammered out weakly. Whoever he was, he was her only chance at getting out from this corner.

He stuck out his limp, cold end far enough so she could see him clearly again. He looked...frightened? It was hard to tell.

His top end had been smashed, she could see now. Maybe he couldn't even speak. While she was crisp and pointy, he was soft and seemed like he didn't have enough potato inside to fill his long, soggy frame.

Tentatively, he extended himself down again, and this time she didn't flinch, letting his soft skin wrap around her midsection. It was an alien sensation. A fry wasn't supposed to be bendy and floppy like him. She wasn't sure what he had in mind...until he started to tug -- cautiously at first, then more forcefully.

Frenchy tried to help, wriggling to force herself free. Together, she could feel they were making progress, and he strained harder and harder.

"Almost!" she said through strained starch. "Come on, pull like you mean it! You're not gonna hurt me!"

He coiled tighter and gave one more mighty tug.

And her bottom tip finally popped free.

She shot up and landed next to him on the cardboard next to the napkin ball, recovering her breath before turning to the stranger.

He was longer than she'd expected, and the rest of him was the same sort of shape -- uneven and limp.

Frenchy slid herself toward him and gave him a tiny pat with her point.

But he leapt up at her touch, twisting himself into three distinct knots in the air, as if he were trying to hide himself behind...himself.

She couldn't stop from letting out an amused giggle.

That seemed to slacken his knots just a little, although his burnt end seemed to burn a little darker with embarrassment.

"I just wanted to say thank you."

She lifted herself up and hopped toward him on her pointy bottom tip, but he flopped backward. His body was too limp to let him stand upright -- he had to*clomp, scraaaaape*to move, pulling himself along.

He peered up at her, his neck twisted in a fearful knot.

She stopped moving and smiled at him as warmly as she could, and the knot loosened a little.

"You saved me."

Gingerly, she moved toward him again, and this time, he didn't recoil. Frenchy bent her tip to his browned end. She could feel him trembling. He was even more afraid than she had been.

His skin didn't feel like the other fries. But that was okay with her. The rest of the fries had been all too happy to leave her behind. He hadn't.

They stayed that way, end to end, for a moment too long before separating.

"You can't speak, can you," she said gently, more statement than question.

He hung his head and gave a sheepish nod.

But she stuck a firm tip under his neck and lifted.

"That's not something to be ashamed of," she said. "You do more with just flopping around than most fries do with every word they've ever said."

She regarded him thoughtfully.

"Floppy," she pronounced. "That's what I'll call you. Is that okay with you?"

A shrug shuddered through his long, limp frame, and in response, her salt rearranged itself into another smile the temperature of a heat lamp.

Now that the excitement of the rescue was over, though, cold reality quickly set in again. She'd been freed from the corner, but The Bag was still closed. Frenchy was just as doomed as before.

She turned again to Floppy.

At least she wasn't alone.

"Where did you come from, Floppy?"

There wasn't much room with the balled-up napkin right next to them, but the lanky fry contorted and twisted himself in a way she was pretty sure was some attempt at communication. He went slower, repeating himself, and she patiently tried to follow.

After the third time through, she'd gotten the rough idea: He'd come from the bottom of The Bag -- a stray picked up by The Fingers after The Selection, only to be discarded into The Box with the rest of the refuse.

Frenchy tried to keep salty tears inside at the thought of what it would have been like to have been so alone in The Bag, followed by the elation of The Fingers finally picking her, the taste of the outside world against her skin, only to have salvation wrenched away at the last moment -- to be judgedunworthyafter all and sent back to the lonely dark of The Box as nothing more than trash.

A cruel fate from start to finish.

But, unless she was mistaken, Floppy seemed almost...happy. His knots weren't stressed. They seemed more like expressions of anxious excitement.

That made her smile too.

"When you were Selected...did...did you see outside The Bag?" She couldn't help herself. She wanted to know what was out there, even if she knew now she'd never see it with her own eyes.

Floppy looked both ways, as if they might be overheard -- which made her let out an amused little sizzle -- before leaning in and giving a secretive nod.

"Wow."

Frenchy's eyes rested on his scrunched-up, browned end, but saw only the unimaginable wonders of the outside instead of a limp, discarded French fry.

"Was it...was it as beautiful as they say?" She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know. Either answer would bring its own devastating disappointment.

He seemed about to shake his head, but stopped himself, fixing his gaze on her. It wasn't an uncomfortable stare. It was warm, like her earliest memories of the deep fryer all that half hour ago.

Slowly, he turned back to the corner where she'd been trapped, then to her again.

She held his gaze.

Floppy nodded solemnly.

She felt as if some grease had dripped out of the fryer and onto her tip, causing her to flush a little.

"You know, I...I thought...." Frenchy tilted her eyes down to an indistinct pattern of salt and stains below her. "I thought I was going to decompose alone. Before you got here."

*clomp, scraaaaape*

He slid a little closer.

She smiled.

"I'm glad you're--"

Frenchy's thought was cut short by the entire bag erupting in vibrations, sending everything shaking. She fell to her side, sliding down the cardboard while everything around her bounced and jounced.

She slammed against the soft napkin, and the terror melted away as she looked back.

Floppy was living up to his name, flipping and twisting through the air with each violent bounce of The Bag, doing loops and shapes in the air. On the cardboard, his awkward, lumpy body scarcely seemed to respond to his commands, but now that he wasn't weighed down by gravity -- now he seemed downrightgraceful.

She let out a little giggle and he seemed to notice, turning his long, snaking form into a somersault.

Then the bouncing gave way entirely -- it felt as though they were all flying through the air, all the starch inside her lurching up as The Bag seemed to fly through an unseen arc. Frenchy braced for impact, expecting to bounce off the napkin and against hard cardboard, clenching her eyes shut.

But when The Box and The Bag slammed into something solid, she barely felt it beyond the sudden stillness.

One at a time she opened her eyes, taking stock. She realized there was something wrapped around her, buffering her from the cardboard and the napkin alike.

Floppy.

But she spared only a moment for that realization because her eyes were drawing her attention to something far more surprising.

Light.

Jagged brown edges framed the royal blue she knew as the sky.

The Bag was open.

Still in his grasp, she turned slightly to Floppy, his browned end nestled against her top.

"Do you see--"

But she stopped, following his downcast gaze. He was looking at his own coiled body, wrapped around and pinned between her and the rough outcroppings of the napkin ball. Farther down, she saw what he was focused on, and she sucked in a silent gasp.

Grease oozed from a new pinprick in his skin -- her crispy bottom tip stuck inside.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" she breathed, and pulled back to try and free herself from his injury.

He winced and let out something approaching a whimper as she moved her bottom tip out of him, trying to stuff as much salt and potato as she could back into the open wound.

With her top, she caressed his burnt end softly, whispering another apology, and the tension in his body dissipated like steam.

Frenchy could read the determined look in his eyes now. He didn't regret a thing.

Gently, she stroked his soft side again and the coil loosened further, resting on her more than holding her.

It was the most intimate thing she'd ever done, and the most intimate thing she'd ever felt in return. Even packed in among her heated compatriots, she'd never felt as close to another fry as she did in this moment -- comforting and being comforted by Floppy.

Fries shouldn't have been able to hug. No cooked, self-respecting fry, anyway. She certainly couldn't. She could embrace no one.

But Floppy -- bendy, chewy, discarded Floppy -- he could.

"You're the only fry who can hug," she whispered straight into his starch. "And you huggedme."

He rested his charred end against her top tip, maybe in answer, maybe not. But she was content to look into those kind eyes for so long she lost track.

Finally, he raised his head -- no longer the brown, mangled thing, but the face of a fry who hadn't left her behind. She followed his stare up and up to the jagged sliver of sky above.

They locked eyes for just a moment, a moment only long enough for her to understand what he had in mind as his body tightened its grip around her, but not long enough for her to protest.

Quickly, he swung his body with all his might -- and released.

"Nooooo!"

She screamed, slung into the air, the sky hurtling closer and closer. She could almost taste the cool air from outside The Bag, could almost smell the unfamiliar scents of the unknown. If she'd had arms, she could have reached out and touched the edges, could have pulled herself out.