Cecil broke the seal and ran his thumb down the length of the pod. The peas fell one by one into a bowl. There were seven peas. Cecil nodded to himself “There are usually seven” He dropped the spent pod into another bowl designated for vegetable trimmings abd started on another pea. “why in that case” he mused “do people refer to a very familiar pair as being like peas in a pod? Surely it is an inane simile. Of course the number of peas per pod varies greatly but I have never seen only two.”
Cecil was contentedly perplexed.He ws always content when slightly perplexed. He also enjoyed the soothing nature of the task in hand. “To hull a few peas for the lunch. A noble act”, Cecil often said, to himself. He was in those salady moments harmonious with folk across the globe, across time itself in fact. Through the simple act of yielding some peas from their pod Cecil was at once sympathising with his ancestors and setting the tone for generations to come. “A lofty, but interesting notion” Ceceil caught himself and semi’chided his own tangent He had paused. He was staring out the window at the clotheline and his thumb had stopped halfway down the pod.
” Anyhow” he resumed “back to peas themselves. How could even two peas, not to mind seven or eight put up with one another after an entire lifetime stuck together in a shell, no a cell, how could this be a model for human friendship? Those two would never integrate into society, they would be over reliant on one another, interdependent and at best they would be a pair of fools, sharing a stunted, limited and deranged worldview. At worst they would be the worst kind of conniving scoundrels, more thick as thiefs than peas in a pod” Cecil had finished podding his pack of peas and bored of his own rhetoric had also decided to finish his line of reasoning.
“A stupid, foundless analogy”, Cecil concluded as he dropped his bowl of newly liberated inmates into a pot of boiling, salted water. Just when he thought he was free himself of pea pondering did another thought spring upon him. Seeing all those peas submerge in the torrent of the pot and the terrible finality with which those damned legumes met their end it dawned on Cecil that that was a vegetables final moment. Not when it,s picked, or packaged or even when it,s chopped. The chopping block is its deathbed,the cooking it,s the execution, the dish it,s burial. The meal is the funeral and nourishment and excrement the obituary. He thought of the seven, on average, peas year long life together, of the good and bad times, the various characters, their bickering, the camaraderie and thier hopes and fears for the future.Cecil could almost hear them say, “Will we wind up sugared, salted and canned and become the accopaniement to some bitter old batchelors tinned sardine lunch ,” or ” I hope we’re frozen, I hear they’ll have us in a bag within the hour” or the intolerant one, “oh, I hope we don’t end up in a mixed bag with those odious cubes of carrot and pipsqueak bits of sweetcorn.”

Cecil smiled as he thought of the little peas and their lives, time spent on shelves, in lorries and in supermarket freezers. He drained the peas of their water  and grimaced a little when he recalled their demise. He scattered the peas on the dish of boiled potatoes that he had been keeping warm. To this ha added salt, pepper, a few thin slices of onion, a splash of vinegar and some olive oil. He set the table and placed his lunch upon it. Cecil fixed himself a glass of white wine from the fridge. Walking past the plate to the back  door he raised his glass to the peas,  and opening the door poured a measure of the drink on the earth below. “For my ancestors”  he announced aloud” and my fallen comrades , the peas”. Cecil closed the door and returned to the table where he ate his lunch slowly and reverentially, savouring each individual pea, enjoying each one’s colour, sweetness and the nourishment that they brought.