Red, dirtily velveted carpet. An uninteresting beige all around. I bust into the surprisingly well-lit room with clanking footwear to find two computer screens silently accompanying each other.
“What is it, Saumya?”, both of the black-haired similar-built boys say at the exact same time. Both unfamiliar faces. Albeit one an insignificant stranger from the past, another a gratified lover for the future.
I turn around in embarrassing haste and quickly make a dignified run for the door.
“My bad, I’ll come back later.”
-x-x-x-
I dread, the intense bright numbers in red.
Have you ever considered the possibility that I could like both pineapple and chocolate on my pizza slice?
There was a time I used to find both of them hideous. First impression of both might have enchanted a few nincompoops, but not yours truly! She despised the tanginess of one and the bitterness of the other. “This just is NOT for me, okay? And that’s fine. I’m only in the vicinity of such distasteful ingredients for a short time. I’ll endure, move on and forget. And be happy with my regular pizza slice!” Naive me lived in the visage of this closeted treat hanging in front of my eyes. Reaching for it, drooling for it…
I met the pineapple first. Sour, unnecessarily tangy, distasteful, wayyyyy too problematic. I spit it out multiple times. “Why does this continue to exist? Why do people like this?” But I gave it time. I like to expose myself to alien, extremely abominable palates from time to time: sometimes it provides a sense of security, other times that of existential introspection. So I stuck around. Experimenting with it. Trying it in different places. My taste buds started to adjust. Repetitive pop song syndrome. Exposure bought time, time bought newer insights, those insights saw a different flavor, that flavor gained affection.
Pineapple became my bestfriend. Proudly so.
Chocolate joined most recently to the party. It was so unlike, anything I’ve had before. It wasn’t crippling cheese, tangy tomato, manly marinara, obedient onion, cringey capsicum or curtius corn. It was… chocolate. Cool. Sweet. Charming. Capable of being dark. Comforting. Chocolate. Don’t mistake paradise for purgatory though, I was oblivious to its wonders initially too. I didn’t see it like it saw me, picked me out of the crowd, to feast upon. I didn’t taste it like it devoured me. Gently at first, irresistibly hopeless at last. It had to shake my shoulders hard for me to snap out of my gaze.
And then, I saw it.
Chocolate was everything I’d ever wanted. We experience what we expect. It was unexpected how I could just never get enough. It wasn’t always sweet, which only made me yearn all its shades I’m yet to see. I could run out of chocolate one day, and that’d be fine. Because I’d find solace in the knowledge of its existence, its proximity, its purity.
I couldn’t have them both though. They didn’t go together. I didn’t give up easy. I toiled. I persevered through the indigestion that forcing both of them together brought. I tried to please everyone, and had all these conflicting tastes please each other, and me.
Pineapple just.. wouldn’t stick. Its a free-spirited taste. I’m not upset it fluttered away, I just wished for compliance. Patience. A will to coexist.
So now I’m down to chocolate, and some remnant toppings. My slice is delicious sometimes, remniscient others. But letting bygones be bygones:
You can’t enjoy what you grasp. You can’t really live if you hold your life too dear.
-x-x-x-
An advice to toads, please just leave. Do not smear lipstick on those ugly sticky lips pretending to be my princess.
