Zot Eats a Sandwich
Zot the zebra entered the Prancing Pony Inn. It was around lunchtime, and he had a craving for food. Approaching the bar, he said to the barmare, "Hey there! Could I please have a sandwich?"
"Sure thing," she replied. "It'll be a few minutes."
"No problem," he replied. Whilst impatiently waiting for the sandwich to be made, he looked around the room. A group of ponies were sitting over at a table. Zot didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it wasn't exactly as if the room was that loud. At the moment, a grey mare was explaining some sort of tools she used in her business to the group. Zot listened in for a few minutes - unintentionally, of course - before coming to a decision. He would go over and introduce himself to the group; they looked like exciting ponies who might be up for an adventure. Ever since he had moved away from his zebra tribe a few weeks ago, Zot had been hoping to go on an adventure with some ponies, just like that of his favourite character, Daring Do.
Zot took a few steps forwards, about to introduce himself, when one of the mares at the bar said, "Sir, your sandwich is ready."
All thoughts of adventuring vanished from Zot's mind. He spun around as fast as he could to face the bar, where he found what was quite possibly the most generic looking sandwich ever. At least, it would have been generic-looking to other ponies. To Zot, no sandwich was generic or boring. Each was a culinary masterpiece, able to fulfill his desire to eat perfectly. A sandwich was no mere meal to him; to Zot, a sandwich was a piece of art, something to be eaten with grace and perfection as befitting its perfect composition.
"That'll be two bits," the barmare said, noticing Zot's eager stare at the sandwich. He passed her some coins, not even bothering to count them. The sandwich was absorbing all of his attention.
Zot picked up the sandwich with a hoof and began tilting it, examining it from all angles. Was the bread as soft and succulent as he had hoped? Did it absorb some flavour from the contents of the sandwich due to its spongy texture? Would its light composition prove to be perfect for the zebra who planned to eat it?
Yes. Yes, it was.
Zot began his examination of the contents of the sandwich now. He was careful not to lift the bread too high, or else the entire thing might fall apart, and he would have destroyed one of the most glorious things in all of Equestria. He had made that mistake too many times in the past, and vowed never to do so again. The daisies all looked to be of optimum quality, although Zot noticed that one of them still had a stem attached to it. He squinted his eyes. Daisy stems were an unwanted component of his favourite type of sandwich - the texture didn't mesh well with the rest of the sandwich, and the flavour was slightly more bitter than the rest of the sandwich. He sighed, and resigned himself to the fact that this sandwich would be of slightly-less-than-perfect quality. Probably only an 8, maybe an 8.5 out of 10, he thought.
Nevertheless, this sandwich was still a sandwich, and by Celestia, Zot was going to eat it! He opened his mouth, brought the sandwich a little closer, and took a bite out of it.
As the first atom of the sandwich contacted his tongue, Zot felt a tingle run down his spine. This increased exponentially as the rest of his first bite entered his mouth, with Zot experiencing a shock through all of his senses. A number of chemicals were released in his brain, causing the joy and happiness which he had already been experiencing to multiply rapidly. If there was a scale for measuring joy, Zot's probably would have increased by... oh, let's say a factor of ten.
The softness of the bread was exactly as Zot had imagined it - soft enough to be easily chewable, yet tough enough to not simply disintegrate as his saliva moistened it. The daisies themselves were succulent and packed with an astonishing amount of flavour. Would it have been exaggeration to say that they were the most flavoursome daisies Zot had ever eaten? Of course it would have been, they were just ordinary daisies, probably taken from the barmare's back yard. Nevertheless, Zot thought that they were spectacular. The only flaw with them were the aforementioned stems, which put off the experience somewhat. The ratio of stems-to-daisy heads wasn't too bad, but it was still enough to be noticeable. Zot made a mental note to complain to the barmare after he'd finished eating.
Zot then began to chew the single bite which he had taken. The bread began to break down into smaller chunks, softened by the saliva in his mouth and turning into small lumps which would have looked really disgusting were it possible for somepony to see them. Fortunately, Zot was a polite zebra, and didn't chew with his mouth open. The daisies, on the other hand, were ground down by Zot's molars as they did the job they had been designed for, which as everypony knew was eating vegetables. As Zot's teeth made contact with the daisies, a question occurred to him - did flowers count as vegetables? They weren't exactly fruit, but they weren't exactly vegetables either. And they certainly weren't potatoes. He made a mental note to ask somepony when he got the chance. Maybe he would be able to increase the efficiency of the manner in which he chewed and ate flowers with the knowledge? Then eating sandwiches would be even better!
The disgusting, unwanted stems were also ground up with the daisies. Upon this happening, they released an extra burst of flavour, their revenge upon those ponies whom would dare to eat them. Fortunately, the daisy heads also released flavour as they were ground up, which counteracted this, meaning that Zot barely noticed the additional flavour from the stems. In fact, although his taste buds were absorbing more flavour from the stems than ever before, it felt to him like they were absorbing less on account of the daisy heads' additional flavour addition. If he had asked somepony about it, they could have explained to Zot all about the flavour contained on the surface area of daisies and their stems as compared to the flavour contained on the inside, within the xylem and phloem, but Zot really didn't care. All he knew was that the bitter flavour of the stems was being drowned out, per se, by the flavour contained within the daisy heads, which made him a very happy zebra indeed.
As Zot's chewing reduced the sandwich to smaller and smaller sizes, he decided to take that which is the greatest risk in eating. The one which all ponies know should not be done too soon, for fear of choking, nor too late, for fear of food becoming too broken up and disgusting. Yes, Zot was going to swallow his first bite of the sandwich. He recalled his mother, back in his zebra tribe when he was growing up, telling him not to eat his sandwiches so fast for fear of him choking. Zot's eyes squinted at the memory. Well Mum, you're not here now, are you? he thought. Buck you I can't eat this sandwich as fast as I want!
Taking the metaphorical plunge, Zot used his mighty zebra brain to command his throat muscles to contract. The lumps of sandwich went down his throat and into his stomach, where they were to be broken up by his stomach acids, so that he might get the most energy out of them. Not all of his first bite went down so easily though - a petal had gotten stuck between two of his teeth somehow, and it was irritating Zot. How was he supposed to eat every single molecule - nay, every single atom - of the sandwich if some of it was stuck in his teeth?
There was only one solution. Within his mouth, Zot's tongue, which had mostly been unused during all this time, save for moving some lumps of food around in his mouth easier, rose up. Finding the offending petal, it began to exert a small force on it, attempting to force it down the gap between his teeth, coaxing it slowly and subtly. Zot's efforts soon paid off as the petal began to move, slowly at first, but eventually finding its way between his teeth and into his mouth proper. Zot allowed the petal to give some of its delicious flavour to his tongue before swallowing it, allowing it to join its brothers and sisters in his stomach.
It was finally over. All of that biting, chewing, swallowing, and careful tongue manipulation had done precisely what Zot had wanted them to - he had finished his first bite of the sandwich. He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, contemplating what he had just done. Yep, looks like my first guess was right, he thought. This sandwich is about an 8 out of 10. I might bump it up to an 8.25 if the rest of it is that good and I don't get any more petals stuck between my teeth.
Zot took his second bite of the sandwich, focusing this time not so much on the flavour, but on the texture, which had been a mere afterthought of the first bite. The bread was still spongy and soft as he liked, and juxtaposed against the daisy stems was the perfect complement. The petals too were soft, but even Zot's mighty zebra tongue found it had to pick apart their individual textures as they were ground down and moved around his mouth. Once more Zot swallowed this bite, taking note this time of how the sandwich felt going down his throat. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, seeing as how it was a sandwich, after all, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt if he had chewed it a little longer.
There was, however, no time for chewing here. Zot loved his sandwiches a good deal, and although he knew that it would probably be wiser to take his time and savour the perfect meal which he had before him, he found it much, much more fun to eat the sandwich as fast as possible whilst still remaining polite and not appearing to be greedy whilst in present company. His first few bites had been enormous, and there was only a small amount of the sandwich left.
Sighing, depressed now with the knowledge that the sandwich would soon be a mere fragment of the past, alive in Zot's memory only, the zebra put the remainder of his meal into his mouth. The sandwich was still as delicious as ever - in fact, this part of the sandwiches didn't have any daisy stems on it. They had been cut off expertly, thus making this, the final part of the sandwich, the tastiest. Zot contemplated this as he chewed. Why would they cut off the stems for the daisies they were using for part of the sandwich, but not the others? he wondered. Did they forget to cut off the first few? Or did they mean to leave these ones on, but screwed up? It was a mystery for the ages, that was sure. Hmm... maybe this was prepared by two chefs? Zot theorised. And one keeps the stems on, whilst another doesn't? That could explain it.
Finally, the dreaded moment was here. The moment in which the sandwich was going to disappear into the bowels of Zot's body, and to be used as fuel for his adventures. Zot swallowed the remainder of the sandwich, knowing that he couldn't put off the inevitable much longer. He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, having accepted the truth of the moment: the sandwich was gone and eaten, and he couldn't do anything about it.
"Well," he said out loud to nopony in particular, "that was tasty."