Ration Inspection

Morning light barely reached past the pantry door, so I had to navigate by touch along the wire shelf. I came across a heavy cylindrical object anchored beside a bag of dry rice—a tin of canned sardines with a rolled metal key attached to the top lid. The winding mechanism was intact, pristine, and untampered with. I used the butt of my grip to tap the tin; the sound was dense, indicating an airtight seal. Securing high-density emergency rations always changes the math of an operation. I cleared a dust mote off the pull-tab and committed its coordinates to memory.