Monday, August 3, 2009

Very Short Stories From the Banquet Table

Even though forewarned, we were bedazzled and knew that anything we ate from this table would linger in our memories, our taste buds forever favoring this repast over all others.
She is said to have remarked, “Let them eat cake,” but these are not her words. They were merely an attribution.

There is nothing so inviting as the sound of dinner plates being stacked, one after the other proclaiming a meal to come, a repast to remember, a feast of dreams.
He approached her at the buffet table, just as she lifted a Vietnamese summer roll to her mouth. It drizzled with peanut sauce.
She held the summer roll suspended in air, “Thank heaven he arrived before I smiled at him with noodles between my teeth.”
Then, holding the dripping summer roll, she did indeed smile broadly – and was bewitching.
“Heavens,” she sighed, “if I’d known this was to be so elaborate, so exquisite, so reminiscent of my dreams, perhaps I would have chosen the silver shoes or I’d have bared my shoulders or possibly, floated on air itself to reach this table.”

Mango juice ran down her arm and dripped from her elbow. The man in her life pursed his lips and tasted sweet juice scented with something ineffable. She smelled of life and mango.
The delights of this table carry over into dreams. We shift in bed and still asleep, taste the fruit, the spiral loaf, the savory meats, a bit of mousse and a parfait. The question is “Do we devour this exquisite food or is it all the other way around? Does the banquet seduce and we, drawn in with one exquisite bite, become the possessed?”

3 comments:

CaShThoMa said...

Gorgeous and just what the doctor ordered for me today. http://aheadofthewave.blogspot.com/2009/08/link-for-anemic-soul.html

Sharon said...

Have you thought about including these delicious stories in the installation?

Mary said...

Mom - I am thinking about a small collection of stories in the format you did for Marfa. something to take from the show.