Melbourne Train Girl stood in front of the pantry at her parents' house, contemplating the processed and packaged foods. A post-Christmas sale had obviously inspired the grocery shopping, as there was an abundance of factory-made plum puddings. She selected a small one. The plastic tub went into the microwave. Miraculously, a look inside the fridge offered her cream. Low fat, but cream all the same. The upturned pudding steamed. Her spoon broke the top, yet reached her mouth and she tasted nothing.
Why, of all things, had she chosen the pudding?
The memory of standing behind him as he searched his pantry for dessert rolled in and could not be stopped. Melbourne Train Girl sat, the lump of pudding in her mouth a solid, indigestable thing. "I can only find one,". Plastic tub in microwave. No cream. No ice cream either. Frozen yoghurt. Small bowl, last scoop of yoghurt melting where it touched the hot pudding. Two spoons and a smile and then it was finished and then it was perfect.
Melbourne Train Girl swallowed the mouthful of pudding, where it fell, heavy, down, landed at the bottom of her stomach, sat there unmoving.
In the moment he had hung up the phone, Melbourne Train Girl had known her heart had never been broken before. The other breaks she had perceived so dire were not even scratches in comparison to the shattered thing she held in her left hand. The phone still in her right. Charm, nor wit, nor wish, nor plea could stop him, and he did it, and then it was done and she was done and everything stopped.
Melbourne Train Girl pushed the plate away violently, wishing it to slide off the other side of the table but pulling back her strength for fear of breaking a plate in a house that was no longer really hers. There it sat, cream melting slowly to watery liquid until it ran in a moat, pudding floating in the middle.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Pudding
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Katherine waited at the station. She was decades late. Long ago, grass had overgrown the tracks, and the rail bridge had found new life as a motorway, then been demoted to a footbridge when a stronger, better, smoother bridge was built for the heavy roadtrains. She sat, laptop atop lap, perusing the web, glad that the platform of MTG's tales wasn't terminal after all.
She waited. And waited. Although she was decades late, she did not realize she'd be waiting this long. Where are you mtg?
The balloons he'd sent her floated above her head. She knew they'd deflate eventually; she empathises with them, anticipating the day when the helium of her spirit will have seeped out into the ether - the day when she'll be left, a hollow non-biodegradable shell, once cheerful, now faded, decrepit, deformed.
Lucky escape: Marveling at the losers she inevitably and inexplicably attracts, Katherine is thankful this one got away. Too much slime is never a good thing.
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