Cleaning Out the Fridge

First off, a can of chile peppers in adobo sauce has vomited all over the second floor, its dark and clotted blood trickling down to the lower apartments, in which a bunch of wilted cilantro protests its dismay and a bag of coagulating spinach hits the ceiling with one plastic fist. In smaller containers: pungent minced garlic begins to liquefy into piss mixed with tasteless pale grains, while basil sprouts the soft gray fur of a blankfaced koala. A lemon, skinned of its zest weeks ago, feels its skin blister and tighten, its pores dry with dehydration, and passes out on the ground, buried beneath a single brown-ended celery rib, and beside a still-crisp apple, and behind a yellow pepper in the midst of a midlife crisis.