The Case of the Severed Sandwich

Detective Kristin Cho hadn’t experienced genuine human emotion in at least six fiscal quarters. Her office was a windowless box with fluorescent lighting that flickered just enough to hint at a nervous breakdown, but not enough to justify replacing it.

The call came in at 9:12 a.m.

“A sandwich has been murdered,” said the voice on the line.

Kristin hung up. It wasn’t the weirdest call she’d gotten that week.

Five minutes later, a man showed up in person with a crime scene photo and a desperate look in his eyes. The sandwich had been savagely cut down the middle—diagonally, no less. Bacon hung from the wound like meat confetti. The tomato had been crushed. It wasn’t a clean job.

“There’s only half left,” the man whispered.

“There’s only ever half left,” Kristin replied.

He handed her a receipt. Café Grudge. One BLT. Extra mayo. No soul.

Kristin stared at the photo for a long time. She didn’t see food. She saw violence. Control. Someone trying to fix the chaos of the world one symmetrical lunch at a time.

She pulled on her coat—a stained trench that smelled faintly of regret and vinegar—and headed out.

Café Grudge was the kind of place that served existential dread with oat milk. Everyone looked like they were recovering from a performance art piece that hadn’t gone well.

“Who made this sandwich?” Kristin asked the barista, who had a mustache that implied trust issues.

“We don’t make sandwiches,” he said. “We curate them.”

She showed him the photo. He flinched.

“That was Mike’s work.”

Mike Anderson: former culinary student turned knife purist. Banned from three delis for “creative liberties.” Once gave a TED Talk titled "Symmetry and the Hunger for Power."

She found him behind the café, smoking a rosemary sprig and whispering to a baguette.

“It was uneven,” Mike said when she confronted him. “Crooked. Obscene. I had to intervene.”

“You cut a BLT like it owed you money.”

“It did owe me. It owed the world balance.”

Kristin didn’t bother with handcuffs. She just told him to walk ahead and keep the philosophical monologue under five minutes.

Back at the station, Kristin filed the report under “domestic food violence.” Another entry in a casebook full of delusions, decay, and deli meats.

She poured a cup of coffee that tasted like despair and ashtray and stared at the corkboard on her wall. Somewhere, someone was still slicing sandwiches without a plan. She would be ready.