Malcolm Makes No Choices

Janine held the blade on Malcolm’s neck, her shaking hand causing small slices just above his adams apple. One of her tears dropped on the blade, mixing with the slivers of blood.

“Do you love me?” she trembled. It was the same question she’d been asking since before she pulled the knife out from the kitchen drawer. She repeated again, louder and more determined, the same question again and again,

“Do you love me?”

Malcolm had told her he loved her in the past in numerous occasions. He had said it in so many ways and in an as many languages as he knew. Even now, he knew he could tell her he loved her. Even though he had said it so many times and in so many ways he knew he could think of more ways to tell her those three simple words.

But he had never been asked that question. He had never been asked whether or not he loved her. He had never been asked to make a choice as to whether he did or did not love Janine. That was the problem. A problem he didn’t realize until a few days ago when he discovered something disturbing about himself.

He couldn’t make a choice.

Malcolm first realized what was wrong when he entered his usual restaurant a few days ago. Ordinarily he would have his usual – a roast beef sandwich on white with a side order of fries and a diet coke. He chose this dish a long time ago, when he first entered the restaurant, and liked it so much that he never thought to try anything else.

After a while the waiters realized that he’d always order the same thing that they stopped asking and simply brought him his usual whenever he came in. It became routine. The waiters at the restaurant weren’t going anywhere, it was a family business, and Malcolm never felt the need to eat anywhere else on Wednesdays.

“Hi, there,” asked the waitress, as Malcolm sat down, “can I get your order?”

Malcolm turned, curious. He hadn’t heard those words in a long time. He faced the waitress, a young blonde girl he had never seen before.

“Excuse me?” asked Malcolm.

“What would you like, sir?” she replied.

Malcolm froze inside and simply stared. He had no idea how to answer. He knew he came in to the restaurant to eat, why else would he be there? But he couldn’t answer the question.

“How about if you look at the menu, sir?”

It sounded like a good idea. He flipped the binded laminated pages and everything looked delicious – a vast number of entrees, appetizers, meat dishes and pastas, oven baked goodness and sweet frozen desserts.

But he couldn’t decide.

A beat later another waiter came, someone he recognized.

“Is there a problem?” he asked the waitress. As Malcolm kept flipping through the menu, the waiter told her that Malcolm was a regular.

“I’m sorry about this,” said the waiter to Malcolm, “she’s new.”

“What happened to your sister, Tracy?” asked Malcolm.

“Oh, she went to college. First one in our family to do so.”

“Congratulations,” said Malcolm.

“Thank you. Lisa here just started two days ago.”

The waiter then turned to Lisa and said, “This man here’s been coming to our restaurant for years. He always has the same thing – a roast beef sandwich on white with fries and a diet coke.”

He then turned to Malcolm and asked,” Isn’t that right?”

And Malcolm couldn’t answer.

The waiter waited for a while before asking again, “Would… would you like your usual, sir?”

Malcolm still couldn’t answer.

“Sir? Your usual, sir?”

Malcolm’s lips parted, a faint sound could be heard, as if he was trying his hardest to say something but had forgotten how to speak. The waiter watched, confused, until finally Malcolm said the words.

“I don’t know.”

The waiter turned to the waitress, then back to Malcolm.

“I’ll… I’ll get you your usual, sir.”

The same thing happened throughout the rest of the day, and it bugged Malcolm to no end. When he got into a taxi the driver asked him where he would like to go, and Malcolm couldn’t answer. When a colleague offered to make him a cup of coffee and asked whether he would like it with or without milk he was lost. When the shopkeeper asked him whether he would like a plastic bag for the carton of milk he had bought he felt like he was going to get a migraine. Every single one of these questions he answered with the same thing,

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t amnesia. That much was certain. When the receptionist at the clients’ office he was visiting asked him who he was and who he was meeting, he answered just fine. When someone asked if he had change for a fifty he gladly obliged. As the day progressed he realized the awful truth.

He couldn’t decide.

It was questions that required decisions and choices that were the problem. He simply couldn’t answer them, he didn’t know how. In short, he didn’t know what he wanted.

He explained all this to his girlfriend, who listened attentively, as she always had. She listened as he told her about how difficult his day was, how it disturbed him, how he couldn’t decide on anything.

“I don’t know what I want anymore, honey,” he said, lying in her arms, “I feel like I don’t know anything.”

Janine gently stroked his hair and said, “it’s ok, Mal… we’ll work it out…”

Her hand through his hair soothed him, and for a moment he thought things would be ok.

“After all,” she said, smiling, “you know you love me, right?”

And Malcolm froze.