Mutual Antagonism

The man was confused, more confused than ever, in fact. He had always figured that a question such as this was straightforward–easy, simple, et cetera. But it plagued him. Why he had not until this point given it much–indeed, any–thought was anybody’s guess, and why now, at his refined age, should this question–when there are so many questions of greater import to be answered–demand such prominence was anybody’s guess as well. The question was of such unbearable heaviness that it would drive him to hang himself from the thing in his closet from which one suspends hangers. The people who would later dissect his body for clues would find that the question followed him even in death, scrawled as it would be across his chest in black marker, a final cry for help, perhaps, or a political message of some sort: Is it better to get peanut butter in the jelly, or jelly in the peanut butter? The people who would later dissect his body for clues would not know the answer to this question either, but they would posit that getting peanut butter in the jelly is preferable.