Paul's Lunch

I still haven't worked out why, I was just thinking of the next drop and how Edna'd be starving by the time I got there. But he continued and then it got horrible.

He started to breathe slower.
I watched his neatly trimmed nails tracing over the names.
And he said something like he remembered them all from this.

Their smell.
How long they tried to hang on.

The fighters.
The pleaders.

He grinned as he spoke and suddenly my stomach plunged low, I forgot the next drop as a dread took hold.

I don't know when exactly I understood.