She was making lists in her head when she left the house. She was determined to get it all done, a.s.a.p., and be that disciplined version of herself she lost a couple of months ago.
No wait, she thought to herself, that was actually more than a year ago.
She couldn’t quite remember when or why exactly it had gone away, it was more like a slow fade-out of the person she had worked so hard to be.
Looking back now it seemed to her like she had just given herself a little time off, to relax – cause she deserved it.
At some point she wasn’t so sure anymore whether she still deserved it or if her credit for that had been used up and she was going into debt.
Lately she would wake up, feeling a wave of discipline and wanting to ride it like she was a surfer – she had never surfed, nor did she want to, but she liked the image nevertheless – she’d start cleaning up, herself and her apartment, arranging things, paying bills, eating eggwhite omeletts and buying things she felt would be essential for the comeback of her discipline.
She would think very far ahead, so far she sometimes forgot what brought her there.
But then the wave would die away some time around 3.30 in the afternoon.
Just like that all these very undisciplined thoughts were creeping up on her. She was battling herself, the thoughts, the laziness, the chocolate.
The chocolate and the laziness really weren’t the issue. She had always been able to handle them – but the thoughts! The thoughts made it impossible not to give in to the rest. Rest. That’s what she should do! Rest and think, just until tomorrow.
The thoughts were strange, at first theoretical and abstract, but shortly after they filled her with a sweet aching feeling of home.
They started with one word. The word grew, grew into an image – melting like Dali’s time, lurking until eventually it had something to do with her.
The word wasn’t big, or important or deep – no, it was small and meaningless most of the time.
Potato soup. Yolk. Flower pot. Paperback. Horseradish. Cotton undies.
Often they had something to do with food, and that was part of the reason they were so dangerous.
Icing, she would think, picturing a very small cupcake with confetti sprinkles that came in a box of six from Publix. Box of six from Publix she would think,
that’s a lot of x’es. I never use that many x’es.
The cupcake would then somehow come to her in her imagination, the icing looking just right, creamy and a little grainy, waiting to touch her senses in whatever way it could.
Yes, the cupcake had intentions. Intentions to make her feel good, like a lover or a very well-meaning friend. The icing was making her happy just being close.
Comfort would spread all through her body, her hands and shoulders relaxed like the icing caressed her gently, leaving a sugary sweet smell lingering in her nose. Pure bliss.
There must be other people who love the icing as much and her imagination wandered, melting with reality. The confetti sprinkles were flying all over the place like pretty rose petal autumn leaves.
People were walking around, happily carrying their cupcakes and feeding each other, laughing when the icing stuck to their nose.
She felt like she was floating in a candy snowglobe and love was somewhere in close proximity, just behind the sprinkle drizzle.
She would picture the man who adored the icing the same way she did.
Usually it would be the owner of the little restaurant around the corner which she started going to around the same time she lost her self control.
He had a girlfriend and probably liked cheese better than icing, but in the snowglobe it didn’t matter.
Gruyere and icing went quite well toghether there, like goat cheese and fig mustard or honey.
The feeling inside her would be breathtaking at this point, befuddling her senses until everything was warm and tingling and she couldn’t feel her eyes anymore.
A glorious fusion of molten cheese and icing. Peanutbutter, she would think, and the whole thing was about to turn orgiastic.
This can not happen anymore she decided as she was making her list.
She had spent far too many afternoons on her sofa, lost in daydreams about being embraced by food or velvet curtains.
Velvet curtains the color of beetroot.
