Pot Roast and Soul Death: A Thanksgiving Tale

Fantasy on a Theme by Reality in Beige Minor

Jun 24, 2025

The Invocation

I wasn’t supposed to be there.

Not emotionally, spiritually, metaphysically. But especially not logistically.

I was a last-minute invite—a lifeline—summoned not by Boyfriend, but by Ivy (not her real name. She just stays green through the cold.)

She called me like you call a psychic hotline when macaroni’s on the line.

“Hey. So. I’m going to Boyfriend’s family’s Thanksgiving thing.”

She sounded fine. But I heard the prayer in Gethsemane.

“Oh no.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you say—”

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming.”

She didn’t have to ask. I was already halfway into my boots, armed with sarcasm and three nicotine patches. Grabbed an open bottle of pinot on my way out. Just in case. I knew what I was walking into.

Boyfriend—to his credit—did warn her.

“Just—Ava’s kind of… a lot.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Maybe that’ll be enough.”

And maybe I wasn’t. But I was there.

The Gathering

Ever walk into a house and instantly know the walls don’t like you?

Not the people. The walls.

Like the beige itself is watching. Like the thermostat is riffing to the refrigerator about your eyeliner. Like even the pot roast can smell your unprocessed trauma.

I followed Ivy in like I was her support raccoon. Nobody looked up.

The food was laid out inside—buffet style—on a kitchen counter that smelled like lemon Lysol and feelings that have been marinating since the Carter administration. It was homey.

I stood with a paper plate in my hand, hovering near the mashed potatoes, while Ivy started assembling her rations.

I joined Ivy at the end of the assembly line, both of us clutching plates like shields. Awaiting orders.

Boyfriend gestured vaguely toward the back door.

"Outside," he said, like it was self-explanatory.

It was not.

I stepped out onto what I assume was once a patio, but was now a ritual space scrubbed clean.

To the far left: a heavy wooden picnic table. One of those splintered monsters whittled by colonial ghosts.

To the far right: a gazebo with precisely five chairs arranged like they were hosting a support group for seasonal depression.

Smack in the middle? A low coffee table with no chairs, a minimalist art piece embodying emotional distance.

Seven people. Five chairs. One rope bridge about to snap.

Ivy came out behind me, balancing her plate and looking like she’d just remembered a dentist appointment from 2009. She stood still for a second. I leaned in.

“Are there… rules?”

She shook her head.

“I think it’s the Wild West out here.”

We stood in the doorway, reluctant pioneers.

Then came Brother-In-Law. Let’s call him Greg. Lifeboat Greg.

He walked right past us and sat at the gazebo. No hesitation. No questions. Just down he went, plate on lap, as if this were any other Pot Roast Day.

I followed. Because when the ship goes down, you swim toward the thing that floats.

The Picnic Schism

Lifeboat Greg was just getting into his meal when The Matriarch appeared.

You’ll know her by the way she chooses a throne no one else wants, then blames them for not sitting on it.

She emerged from the house with her plate held high, like she was offering it to the gods of Unasked Labor. She surveyed the yard once, then made a deliberate turn toward the picnic table. Alone.

She sat.

No one joined her.

Ivy and I had our backs to her, which offered plausible deniability, but Lifeboat Greg was facing her dead on. If he noticed, he gave no sign. The man was locked into his pot roast like it held the nuclear codes.

I leaned toward Ivy.

"She chose exile," I murmured.

“She chose splinters,” Ivy said.

A moment later, Depresso emerged. That’s Ivy’s nickname for Boyfriend’s sister. I adopted it immediately. Her emotional range runs from quiet dread to seasonal darkness, with occasional glimmers of interpreting clouds as omens.

She glanced between us and the table before opting for the gazebo. Sat down next to Lifeboat Greg. Said nothing.

Then came Boyfriend. He took the spot on my other side and, in doing so, finalized the schism.

Five in the gazebo. One at the picnic table. Two still unaccounted for.

Then, like a horror movie jump scare, Tweeny Houdini appeared. Twelve, feral, and already fluent in escape tactics. She sat with The Matriarch out of what I assume was either loyalty or unspoken threat—or maybe she just didn’t feel like dragging a chair in front of God and Greg.

That left one.

Father Dot Com.

I call him Father Dot Com. Not because he’s tech-savvy—he’s definitely not—but because Ivy built his website and got ghosted harder than a 3am Tinder match.

He emerged last. Unhurried. Unknowable. Silent as a TOS update. He glanced toward the picnic table. Walked past it.

Grabbed a plastic chair from near the grill. Moved toward us.

And sat down directly beside me.

Didn’t speak. Didn’t nod. Didn’t blink. As far as I could tell.

I acknowledged him with the kind of half-smile you give a stranger who might be your landlord or your biological father on a daytime talk show. He said nothing. Ate in silence, lap balanced, fork precise, eyes on his food.

Boyfriend—for reasons known only to himself—took this moment to offer commentary.

“You’re pretty quiet today, Dad.”

Father Dot Com responded without looking up. “Yep.”

And that was the only word I got from the man whose entire online presence had Ivy’s fingerprints all over it.

“How’s the website working out?” I heard myself ask. I had to know.

He might have nodded. Or maybe the breeze caught him just right. Hard to say.

“Pretty great, right?”

No answer. But the chewing sounded… affirmative.

“So are you hosting, like, a lot of porn or—?”

A hunk of pot roast fell out of Depresso’s mouth. I think Ivy might’ve stifled a snort. Father Dot Com’s temple pulsed. Looked like a yes to me.

“Yeah, no—homemade’s where it’s at right now. Everyone's got a cousin with a GoPro and a dream. Have you—”

That’s when it started.

The Matriarch began to breathe.

Gasp of Thrones

The Matriarch wasn’t taking casual, normal, living breaths. Not even “wow, fresh air” breaths. They were a soul’s ghostly scream.

Long, theatrical, unignorable banshee sighs that didn’t qualify as speech, but demanded to be recognized. It was the sound of a woman wronged by seating arrangements.

Of course, no one moved.

I think Depresso’s nostrils flared.

I half expected The Matriarch to rise, climb up onto the splintered picnic table, and begin her own eulogy:

“She gave and she gave, she cooked and she cleaned, and still—and still they sat afar, leagues away across the turbulent sea of grass, in yonder gazebo. A harbor of ungrateful fugitives feasting upon the labor of her hands amidst the wreckage of her life.”

Of course, she didn’t.

Ivy and Boyfriend seemed content to enjoy their meals. Lifeboat Greg and Depresso, too.

Father Dot Com took the kind of deep breath that decidedly said, “not involved.”

Tweeny Houdini remained by The Matriarch’s side, oblivious as one can be in Target leggings.

The Matriarch exhaled again, louder this time. Almost the gasp of a haunted balloon.

Finally, she cast her voice across the sea of grass.

“You’re all so far away.”

No one responded.

Only molars.

“There are more chairs,” Depresso said, without looking up.

She didn’t move.

Father Dot Com remained committed to the fantasy that chairs were someone else’s problem.

Eventually, Boyfriend stood. He fetched a chair from the stack near the grill and placed it beside him, the only available space that made sense.

The Matriarch rose. Crossed the verdant sea. Sat.

And just like that, the seating war was over. Six in the gazebo. One escape artist at the picnic table. Tweeny Houdini indeed.

But the silence that followed was heavier.

Now it had a queen.

The Christmas War

I was half-way through my pot roast when the first shots were fired.

It started, as all true family wars do, with something sacred and absurd.

Christmas.

Not the holiday. Or the logistics. Not even the weather forecast and whether snow was a blessing. No. This was about the correct emotional posture one ought to maintain about Christmas. The correct celebratory practices. And whether or not Boyfriend was maintaining family celebratory regulations properly.

Spoiler: He was not.

It began with a tone. Not a word. A tone. A kind of high-caliber, passive-aggressive change of voice that The Matriarch had probably sharpened at a corporate retreat.

“Well,” she said out of nowhere, patting her lap as if we were an hour into an actual discussion, “some people just think traditions aren’t important anymore.”

I’d heard the stories. I expected her to look at Boyfriend. She didn’t.

She looked at Ivy.

Directly.

Which was fascinating, because she had spent the last run-time of a Jason Bourne movie acknowledging Ivy only as a salt distribution facilitator. Somehow Ivy had been caught in the crossfire, handed a bayonet, and shoved toward Boyfriend.

“Ivy,” The Matriarch said, drawing the name out like a spider web, “what do you think about Christmas?”

Ivy blinked once. I swear her fork paused mid-air like it was waiting for backup.

This was not a question. This was a test.

Ivy gave a smile that I recognized, the kind of smile you give to someone who just handed you a baby and a lit cigarette at the same time.

“I think Christmas can be nice,” she said. “I like the routine, I guess. Predictability can be a good thing. Just not when it becomes… I don’t know. Rigid?”

It was so gentle. So impossibly reasonable. Like handing an arsonist a cup of lukewarm tea.

The Matriarch’s eyes flared.

She turned slowly to Boyfriend.

“There it is,” she said. “Right there. You’ve got her saying it now.”

My throat clenched. I caught Ivy’s eye. She was still half-smiling, cheeks tensed, holding posture.

I wanted to say something. Wanted to shatter the silence with a molotov of sarcasm.

Why yes, Matriarch, her casual opinion on holiday flexibility must be stopped at once before it infects the youth.

But I didn’t.

Instead I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard.

Boyfriend, saint that he is, tried diplomacy. “Mom, she’s just saying—”

But it was too late. The Matriarch was recalibrating. Her gaze swept the gazebo.

And landed on me.

She looked me dead in the face. First time all day. First time ever, really.

And smiled.

Like a serpent stretching its jaw for a raccoon.

“Ava,” she said, all sweet tea and antifreeze, “don’t you think it’s important to keep family traditions alive?”

I felt every cell in my body light up.

I wasn’t just being looked at. I was being recruited.

The question was a conscription. A baited hook cast in my direction, dripping in passive-aggressive civility.

I blinked. Took a sip of wine. Let it sit in my mouth. Deep breath. Formulate the response.

Then I met her gaze and my mind melted sideways:
“Absolutely, I mean, we would always burn an effigy of our regrets at Thanksgiving. Really brought the cousins together. Anything to get them to set down the GoPro.”

Silence. Thick. Eternal.

Boyfriend gave a cough—the kind that carries both warning and laughter.

The Matriarch’s smile twitched.

“I mean,” I added, casually, “if holiday hustle is your thing, I get it. Gotta be a market for it. Everyone loves a sexy Santa suit. But—wait, you’re not trying to get me on your website now, are you?”

Father Dot Com choked.

I caught myself.

“Yeah. So I guess what I mean is: go tradition,” I finished, raising my wine.

Greg stood.

Then Depresso.

The Matriarch sighed. Nodded.

“It’s time,” she announced.

And just like that, the war was over.

I looked to Ivy. Her eyes said it all: no idea what just happened.

Greg led the retreat into the house.

We followed.

Except Tweeny Houdini.

She was gone.

Another brilliant escape.

The Arena

Inside, the living room had the ambiance of a waiting room for purgatory. Beige. Dim. A vague smell of feet and lingering pot roast.

Someone—possibly Depresso, possibly God—turned on the TV. Not cable. Not a movie. Not a parade or football or even old home videos.

YouTube.

Battle Bots.

Ivy, Boyfriend, and I perched stiffly on a couch. One of those overstuffed fabric monstrosities with the give of cinder block and the smell of that divorced uncle who’s definitely ‘just a custodian’ at the brewery.

Onscreen, tiny death machines screamed into one another.

No one flinched.

No one commented.

The Matriarch took her place in an armchair. Another solitary throne.

Father Dot Com sat where he’d somehow always been.

Ivy leaned toward me, eyes wide.

“What even is this?” she whispered.

I shook my head.

“A rerun of dinner?” I tried.

She bit her lip. Settled back. We watched.

Someone’s wheel came off. Something caught fire. A tiny piece of shrapnel flew and pinged off the inside of the cage.

Onscreen, a digital voice shrieked:
“TERMINATION SEQUENCE ENGAGED.”

And I thought: yeah. That feels about right.

The Recessional

About ten minutes into the second round of eternity, Ivy began her exit ritual.

It started with a slight knee slap. Then the faintest of stretches. I imitated.

We were going. It was time. The robots had spoken.

We were halfway to vertical when The Matriarch stirred.

She hadn’t said a word in nearly forty-five minutes.

“Leaving so soon?” she said, like we were walking out of a baby shower she’d thrown in our honor.

It was the first time she’d addressed Ivy since deploying her in the War.

“Oh—it’s just getting late,” Ivy said. “Ava’s got a long drive.”

The Matriarch gave a nod. One that held as much approval of Patton overseeing a court-martial. “Well. Don’t be strangers.”

I felt my jaw lock. I wanted to say something. Lift a cushion and scream into the crumbs. Truly, though, I most wanted to ask if the Battle Bots were metaphorical or prophetic.

But instead, I stood.

Ivy gave a thank-you. Polite. Impossibly gracious. Boyfriend stood too, and for a second, I saw it: the small, silent solidarity, camaraderie, in his eyes.

We turned to the door.

Father Dot Com didn’t move.

Depresso’s eyelids might have twitched.

The Matriarch stayed seated, watching the screen because it’s what is done.

We stepped out and made it to the car. No words. Just the sound of keys, and a long exhale.

As we pulled out, we saw her—Tweeny Houdini—walking alone down the sidewalk, coat unzipped, earbuds in, like none of it had ever happened. She didn’t look back. Just lifted one hand in a half-wave. We waved back.

I blinked, and she was already gone.

More essays, fiction, poetry, and diary entries are coming.
-Ava