Hunger

When I asked her whether she was hungry yet, she said because she had just eaten something sweet. When I asked her what it was, she said it was something with something sweet in it. I looked at her, and she said it was like a bread with something sweet inside that was a kind of bean. She said because her English is not so good, I knew that. When I asked her when she would be hungry again, she said why are you always asking me about food. I said I'm not asking her about food, I'm asking about eating. She said what's the difference. I said one is a noun the other is a verb, one is a thing the other is an action. She looked at me as if my face became funny but in a way one could not laugh about. Actually, I said, I was asking about hunger, which is more different than food than eating is. She looked at me again. I said in Africa people are hungry but have no food and cannot eat. She said we're not in Africa. I said that was just an example. She said where she came from eating and food and hunger were all the same, they were all related. Everything is related but not the same, I said. Are you the same as your sister, I asked. No! That's different, she said. See, I said, it's different. She shook her head and went back to her work. It was then that my hunger began to frighten me.