Atlas and Alice, Issue 20
J.B. Stone
Suddenly —Everything was cake—and everything I thought wouldn’t be cake—was cake. I thought it was a nightmare of unknown origin tattooed to my psyche, but no. Now everything I knew—know now—and will ever know for the rest of my days: cake. The pair of Converse stacked tightly next to my closet was marbled marzipan. And the worn-out shoelaces, dangling from each end? Black licorice, of course! The basketball over by the stairwell, the one that felt unmovable by even the slightest breeze, was a spun-sugar sphere, blanketed in orange creamsicle icing with chocolate chip imprints. The stairwell was an 18-foot-tall caramel cake, each step a cookie crumb molding in disguise. As for my entire apartment: I could take the sharpest edge of the chisel, cut open the drywall only to find out it was more cake than caulk, only to find my walls were filled with more double fudge and marshmallow frosting than plaster and plywood. Cake doesn’t talk. It just sits there looking delicious, but what happens when no one eats it? Does it become something else? Does it become someone else? My mother’s best friend and go-to salon partner, at least when I wasn’t in town, Julia Salinaro, was a bright, yet boisterous family friend who spoke at speeds fast enough to break the sound barrier with a tone louder than an orchestra of lit dynamite: was she cake? Could cake evolve into someone with such range, such personality? When my cat Jasmine passed away, I never wondered if she was cake—but I do now. One composed of factory-processed tuna, and abandoned animal parts. Maybe her orange fur was something composed of super-thin fruit strips, to add a sweet balance to the fishy taste smothered inside her taffy skeleton. Maybe the milky-white saucer in her eyes, was just that: milk. And her: expired dairy left to curdle. If she turned out to be cake when the vet pronounced her dead, it doesn’t change how much I loved her. It doesn’t change the fact that this was the closest I would get to having and losing a child in my lifetime.
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