What If?

There was a recent competition at my school to write a short prose story from your choice of three starters. This is the starter I picked:

So this is how it ends. What is it that brought me here, now? Could this have been avoided? Even I am no longer sure. But as I look to my past, I wonder, what if?

This was my submission:

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So this is how it ends. What is it that brought me here, now? Could this have been avoided? Even I am no longer sure. But as I look to my past, I wonder, what if? What if I had gotten fries with that?

What a pitiful state I am in, bereft of fries but longing for more. When the waiter came with pen in hand, I already knew that he also had infamous question in mind. I thought of my stomach, and how it was slowly winning the battle with my tucked shirt, sagging over my corduroys like some gluttonous monster from hell. I thought of my date, my beautiful woman, who I was almost certain was complaining to her friends about my eating habits. So, in false righteousness, I decided my fate. His mouth opened, and veritably spewed those fateful words onto my empty plate. Would you like fries with that? No, thank you.

And thus my destiny was sealed, for how could one go back on a promise such as that? My date smiled warmly at my answer. For a fleeting moment I felt as if I was in control. This facade of control over my own stomach. But it was not to last. As my burger dwindled in front of me and I could see more and white china peeking through the bun, my depression grew. I knew I would still be hungry.

And now here I sit. A sad soul. I have won the battle with my date, but not with my gut. It is pounding on my door, breaking it from it’s hinges with hunger. It needs sustenance. It needs love. It need fries.

And now that question will forever claw at the back of my mind, much like the hunger now claws at my throat. That small but infinitely meaningful question that one can never know...
What if?