Twisted Up Like a New York City Pretzel

Timed frantic writing story. The seed sentence was “ I was twisted up like a pretzel, a New York pretzel with Heinz mustard.

I was twisted up like a pretzel, a New York pretzel with Heinz mustard. My left leg was behind my neck, my right arm went under my right leg and around the left side of my head. I was locked up in all my limbs like a tensegrity sculpture, held together by opposing tensions. Like a piece of human artwork sitting immobile on the sidewalk.

Around me walked the busy citizens of the great metropolis. Not only did they pay no attention to the towering skyscrapers that rose to the heavens all around them, but they paid no attention to me and my twisted figure as I watched them, with pleading eyes, the only part of me to which I was able to impart motion.

“Help…”, I intoned, but my voice came out strained and small, a tinny croak lost among the sounds of traffic, overhead trains, footsteps, New York chatter, and sidewalk hawkers.

“Help me…”, I said again but with my head bent downward by the heavy thigh upon my neck, the sound only dribbled down to the sidewalk and was lost draining uselessly into a sewer grate and gutter.

“Help me please…,” I tried to raise my voice to a shout but the sound of wagon wheels and the clanging bell of a pretzel cart pulled next to me, blocking me from the view of passersbys. The steaming oven enclosure opened and the lovely smell of salt pretzel drifted out and down. And then the smell of Heinz mustard on baked pretzel was added to the mix.

My jaws suddenly ached as my salivary glands activated. The lubrication seemed to spread from my parotid to my submandibular secretory organ and thence, like a wave, oozed slowly through all my joints unlocking their stiffness and tension. My left leg relaxed and slithered off my neck, my right arm released from the left side of my head and from under my right leg. Like an unwinding multi-stranded rope, my limbs separated and relaxed, and I unfolded and stood and stretched.

Turning to the pretzel vendor, I ordered a New York pretzel with Heinz mustard. Delicious, absolutely delicious.