She was in the bathroom washing her hands when a silent, rhythmic sound drew her attention. The cat was curious too. The faucet in the bathtub was leaking a bit, drop by drop by drop. She tried to tighten the showerhead hose with bare hands, but it didn’t help, so she decided to leave it for tomorrow. The sound was barely audible; she hadn’t known it existed, but now, once noticed, she could hear it from the other room.

It was dinner time, and she stared at the contents of the fridge as if a profound gaze might cook her a meal out of the ingredients stored there. This didn’t happen, and she took out a bag of gnocchi as the quickest solution.

“Why would I eat dinner now? I’m not even hungry. Why am I a slave to food conventions invented thousands of years ago for agricultural societies dependent on day–night cycles?”

She was thinking how hunger shaped history — it started with food, and it escalated to become a reason to justify any desire.

She poured water into a saucepan, added a pinch of salt, and put it on the stove. She stood there, watching the bubbles as they started to grow larger.

“The only hunger that never diminishes is the hunger to be understood,” she said to the big bubbles. And she knew it too well.

“Yet, people understand you fully only when you’re dead. A closed file. And even then, they understand only what serves their picture of you. Right when you can’t care anymore what others think of you.”

She added the gnocchi to the boiling water.

“If I die now, would you care?” she asked the cat leisurely parked on the ottoman.

“Or you would be happy just to get your food and treats from anyone? As long as you’re not hungry, you would be fine, right?”

She got only an over-the-shoulder glance and a twitch of the ear that she understood as a confirmation.

Three minutes passed on the coffee machine clock, and she poured the gnocchi into a colander placed in the sink. The steam splashed her face with warmth.

“But I cannot die just now! There are things I need to do. Or do I? What is that big thing I’m still waiting for? It’s all my fixation anyway — a goal, a purpose, an excuse to exist.”

The sound of the drip from the bathroom reached the kitchen — steady, indifferent. With the fire turned off on the stove, the kitchen light on the white cabinets looked as if it were in an operating room. Suddenly she felt so tiny, so fragile, smaller than the cat. She never leaned toward self-pity. She wasn’t sorry, nor sad. But the tears started rolling silently along her face, down into the sink, drop by drop by drop.

The thoughts disappeared, and only a wordless void filled her whole being, draining out every tear that had waited its turn. Time passed, who knows how long.

A stomach rumble chased the blankness away and called her back to reality. Hunger intervened again.

She poured gnocchi on her favorite plate and added pesto. Quite straightforward and balanced. She sat at the table, but as she lifted the fork to take the first bite, she stopped midair. It was all too plain.

She went to the cabinet where she kept spices and searched for a jar of pine nuts. They were already in the pesto, but she suddenly, wanted more.

Small and buttery, with a mild but distinct taste. Hiding in cones, they could have easily gone unnoticed, but, luckily, someone copied the squirrels.

She raised the jar toward the ceiling lamp and looked closely at those inconspicuous little beads now lit up by warm light.

“You’re unnecessary,” she said quietly. “But without you, it’s flat.”

She sat back at the table, and started adding them on the plate, nut by nut by nut.

Somewhere, the faucet was still leaking.