Edible
A Melbourne short story.
I am dropped off by my Uber driver somewhere in the middle of Yarraville. All I have is a house number, a street name and the text “it’s the one with the white Tesla parked out front.” I feel the dry late summer sun on my face as I step out of the car and onto the warm tarmac, which I seem to be able to feel even through my soles. There’s a staleness to the air upended here and there by an almost imperceptible breeze. The soundscape is filled with the silence of a residential neighbourhood on a Tuesday afternoon, so there is barely any sound to register between my closing the car door behind me and B. opening the front gate.
I take in the smell of his skin as I hug him hello, even before I register him being shirtless. There’s a certain white-picket fence vibe to B., as if he could indeed be owning this three-bedroom house with carpeted floors and a kitchen island, and driving this car, only ten years from now – and I suddenly feel clunky and inadequate in my black coffee-stained working pants and chunky Nike runners next to his extremely relaxed bare feet on the floor. I wonder how someone can seem so comfortable in a lifestyle they’ve been living for less than two weeks, but I guess there is a certain immediate comfort to be found in any family home, with its smells of kids’ moisturiser, pet food, and freshly mowed lawn.
I join him as he finishes his yoga session on the floor of one of the kids’ rooms. When we get to Shavasana, I realise this is the first time in a long time that I’ve had my eyes closed next to someone. The silence around us in the otherwise empty house allows me to take in his every movement with heightened awareness so that even the fabric of his shorts rubbing on the silicone mat as he moves from one spinal twist to the other fills the space with an almost unbearable loudness.
I listen as his breaths become deeper, longer and more spaced out. I can hear my heartbeat getting louder as we near the end of the session, and my anxiety peaks. I wonder if he, too, can sense my body betray my pretence. The short time we spent sharing this space and this silence, without a break or breach to provide relief or a sense of continuity to what I am certain has been no longer than a few minutes but now seems like an hour, has created a disproportionately charged tension. I feel myself reaching for him as he’s reaching for me, and I don’t know what I felt first, his touch or my caving.
Time spent with B. would often gravitate towards the senses in a way that time spent with previous lovers hadn’t. This was new to me. Everything felt disorienting and offbeat for a minute, like when you wake up in a bedroom that isn’t your own, and take a few extra microseconds to gather your bearings. He was asking me to notice the world while I was used to just running through it. Walking down the street, he would suddenly stop to caress a sprig of fresh rosemary springing out of people’s gardens onto the pavement or point to a certain birdsong that my ear would not have captured over the traffic. I was obsessed with the way he was obsessed with the mushroom sandwich from the espresso bar around the corner. His love of coffee.
At the family house, we spent afternoons doing collage. Bits and pieces scattered across the glass-top dining table from old magazines picked up from op-shops or the curbside, a couple of scissors, a Bostik glue stick. Phones in flight mode. I looked at his psychedelic compositions and thought to myself what I always think whenever I see art that I like: what experiences, passions and feelings informed this? And how can I possibly and most urgently get to the core of who this person is? Knowledge. Power. Control.
I thought I would fail my first collage assignment in the same way I fail at all things which require risk and I approach with caution. Looking at his aesthetically informed juxtapositions and interplay between form and content, I tried to challenge myself to create without purpose. “Instead of spending so much time thinking about it, just pick a few images that you like. You can integrate them on the page afterwards,” he offered, watching me struggle to choose which bits to cut from the glossy pages. What do you mean picking at random, I wondered. “It’s not random if it catches your eye,” he added as if I had spoken the words and not thought them.
I ended up with a vertically aligned A4 sheet divided at the halfway point by two landscapes. On the upper half of the page, what looked like the corner walls of a brightly-lit museum room; on the bottom half, a gloomy scenery with a slightly blurred house surrounded by water, which reminded me of Magritte’s Empire des lumières. Smack right in the centre, a small boy’s body, feet hovering over Magritte’s blue sky, torso and head hidden by a small rectangular clipping of a grown man facing a mirror. B. said it looked pretty good for my first time. If I wanted to improve it, I could make an effort to merge the two backgrounds to accomplish a more organic horizon rather than a straight line. “That would make it softer on the eye.”
I would inexplicably keep this work and bring it back home with me, though I left Australia with less than I went with. It now rests atop my sister’s piano next to the scores at my parents’ house. Whenever I look at it, I think about the warm tarmac and the fresh sprig of rosemary.
In the beginning, I took B. in the same way I have taken in anyone I have ever fancied – by breaking them into bite-sized bits and stealing their better parts while overlooking the bad habits. Shadowing their life and incorporating the qualities, behaviours or desires I have been lacking. “What will you show me?” my heart (head?) seems to wonder. Is this another facet of me mixing up attraction and curiosity, or is it the worst hypothesis of me only being capable of a kind of love that is intrinsically narcissistic and self-serving?
It was now mid-April, and Autumn had settled in. The grand array of flowers which had blossomed and sprung during the hot, steamy summer months now allowed one last graceful glance before their demise. After a late afternoon picnic, things started turning. I left my home in Coburg early enough to hit all three pit stops on Sydney Road on my way to the park where we’d be meeting. For kombucha first, two vegan quiches second (one of which was so yummy I can still remember its pornographic black bean chilli interior), and a sweet treat from the bakery to top it all off. As I put on my helmet to hit the road again, I got a notification on my phone: “I fucked up and fell asleep. Leaving in a second.”
He showed up late with one out of three items he was supposed to bring: drinks (I never expected them, hence the kombucha), a blanket (“I’ve looked and I actually cannot find anything at this house. I don’t think they are the picnic type.” My question at this point – are you?), and a speaker (present). Having placed all the delicious treats I brought on the grass between us (oh, how they longed for a blanket to be devoured from!), he casually produced from his coat pocket his only edible contribution: a half-eaten Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bar (the irony in the brand name dawning on me as I write this).
I went home with the terrifying realisation that I wouldn’t be able to indulge in a Tony’s again (the 51% Dark Chocolate Almond Sea Salt Bar usually making a weekly appearance in my pantry) without being reminded of this most tragic demonstration of carelessness. My good friend L., in her attempt to reverse the devastating situation, pity and exasperation still fresh on her mind, would present me with a bar for my birthday two weeks later – beautifully whole and unopened.
When B. didn’t show up for our cinema date the following week, I went just the same. The movie was a contemplation exercise in the beauty of everyday routines and the seeking – and, most generously, the finding – of pleasure in simple things. I emerged from the screening into the midday brightness to make my way home, light on my feet and overwhelmed by this sense of timelessness that a great piece of anything can inspire. I felt compelled to sit on a bench in the square opposite Carlton Library, studying the crowd – a couple exchanging cuddles, kids playing on the swing, a girl sitting with her dog engaging in the back-and-forth, endless motion of playing catch.
I took a bite of my juicy apple. I closed my eyes. I paid attention.
It’s such a treat to read you Sofia <3