Victory Pizza

I felt like having a pizza for dinner tonight. I still had some leftover spaghetti sauce from last week and a few tins in the fallout shelter. The surplus cheese was holding out and a moldy onion was battling a cockroach under the sink. When the air raid sirens had first banished us to our bunkers, what was it? Three months ago now? How it seems like an eternity! I had wanted to do some baking, but the state controlled markets were always out of something; toilet paper one day, Victory cigarettes another; and on my recent trek to the commissary it had been yeast.

The good news was that I still had one packet of Victory yeast in storage, the bad news was that I only had one packet in storage. And who knew when that commodity would be back on the shelves? I still had a ration of flour, a portion of which I risked with my precious packet of yeast and a cup of water and made my own starter. I was sure to do it while in the only corner of my apartment unavailable to the Siriscreen, since such exhibitions of independence are considered uncouth and treason against the Party, who provides for our every need. It’s also where I keep the forbidden journals I am recording in now. I keep them under a floorboard next to the skeleton of the previous tenant. I only ever knew him as ‘Mad Winston.’

It thrilled me, committing this simple act of using a few ingredients to create more food, like a common deploretariat. Oddly, yeast has remained unavailable in the stalls all these months. Flour is sporadically available, so I have been able to have some quaint home baked item about once a week thanks to my self-regenerating starter: A pizza here, Eurasian Muffins there. I am becoming a regular Deplor!

Today it was back to pizza, I hardly even acknowledge the Siri-screen, or Google Sister, Cortana for that matter, anymore. Such reckless revolution at the rotisserie! I still maintain my frugality-for the Party, you know. Usually I eat only half of whatever I make and leave the rest for the next day. I suppose I should be just throwing it away and buying more, in the interest of the Company. But I can’t bring myself to discard something as precious as food, especially when I prepare it, and partially grow it, myself. Maybe that’s what the Deplors call self-worth. It’s an unsettling concept, yet one to which I am almost viscerally attracted. I can see why it is considered dangerous.

I have been growing quite the rebel! I realized today that I did not have to cook a whole pizza and only eat half of it. There was another way I could rebel against dependency. After decanting some of the starter into a bowl and adding fresh flour, water, salt, and oil, I could divide it in two and save the uncooked dough for later like I would otherwise save one half of an already cooked pizza. This way I wouldn’t have to eat it tomorrow since it would keep and then still transform into a fresh pizza on my demand even several days later. Such innovations are extraordinary. Prepare, but cut in half before cooking.

"That must be the geometry that genius man, Euclid, was talking about!" I shouted in my enthusiasm.

“Euclid was a woman!” drilled the Seriscreen.

“And she was a person of rainbow colors!” shouted Cortana.

“And I expect you to return to work tomorrow!” Chirped Alexa. “For the good of the Company!”

I’ll remember that at the next two minutes virtue-signal when we’re venting against-which enemy are we fighting? Oceania or Eastasia? I thought it was Airstrip One now. Or is that who we are? I forget. The memory hole is digital.

Never mind. Julia, pass the Victory Gin, would you?