ALUMINUM FOIL
Estimated Read Time: 4 minutes
“Massive rollers flatten the slab by rolling it multiple times, while heavier backup rollers put additional pressure on the slab to keep it an even thickness.”
Vaughn stirred on the couch, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He turned to face the TV screen that was illuminating the room with soft blue light, the TV that woke him up from his already incredibly spotty sleep, but his view was obscured by a dark figure casting a shadow over his face. “Dahlia?” he grumbled.
“Yeah?” She did not look at him, but she responded with the amount of clarity that was not normal for the middle of the night on a Sunday.
“What are you doing up? Don’t you have work tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” Her form stayed fixed in the direction of the television. She was seated in front of him, Vaughn couldn’t tell what she was watching.
“The slab continues to another set of rollers, which reduce it to about 5 millimeters or 3 sixteenths of an inch. It is then coiled into a large roll.” The British voice from the television screen continued.
Vaughn arched his back and dragged himself out of the mess of dirty sheets and couch pillows that had accumulated around him. He dropped his feet to the toe-numbingly cold hardwood floors to sit next to her. He could barely find any part of the floor that was not covered by either a comic book, dirty shirt, or pair of socks. He could now see the screen. A time-lapse of a factory pressing and rolling aluminum sheets played before him. Over that, a seemingly middle-aged British man spoke. He seemed like quite the expert. Vaughn could see how she could find it appealing, the rhythmic repetition of the foil being pressed, rolled, then sliced was a slight bit satisfying. “Dahlia, do you do this every night?”
“What?”
Even though her responses continued to last no longer than a syllable, she at least cocked her head in confusion at this question. Physical interaction probably meant that she was paying at least little attention to his inquiries. “Do you watch these weird foil videos every night at what,” he paused to check the digital clock that was knocked sideways under the lamp, turning his head 90 degrees to read it, “1:42 AM?”
She shrugged, “Sometimes.”
He waited for her to continue, but she stayed transfixed. Vaughn often tried to place himself in her headspace to consume media the same way she did, but he could never attain the complete reverence Dahlia was able to give to the videos she watched. Either out of awkwardness or in memory of the friendship he now realized he had lost, Vaughn kept quiet to continue watching.
The British man continued, “On the final pass, two sheets of foil are rolled together because-“
He was already bored. “Are you going to bed soon?”
Dahlia paid this question no mind. She was too into the video. The time-lapse had ended, the shot was now focused on a spread of aluminum foil being flipped back and forth. Matte side to shiny side. Shiny side to matte side.
“If you’re not going to sleep, can I sleep in your bed?”
“Sure.”
She was not paying enough attention to Vaughn where she cared about the contents of the question, but he didn’t mind the result. At least he got to sleep in an actual bed, it had probably been weeks since he had done that. “Thanks,” he muttered as he stepped over piles of cords and dirty clothes to get through the short hallway.
As he tried to reorder her sheets and the duvet cover that had not been washed in weeks, he decided he would likely never see Dahlia or New York City again despite the nostalgia he felt for both of those things. For someone who could read his mind all of high school, she seemed so distant now. Had she always been this way? No matter who had changed, Vaughn knew that crashing at Dahlia’s was not for the faint of heart.
“Kitchen foil is wound onto cardboard tubes and boxed, ready for wrapping up all kinds of food, even leftover roast goat” was the last thing Vaughn heard before he finally was able to fall asleep.