Image credit: Twitter Twemoji Image credit: Twitter Twemoji
“Wow, this is the best apple crumble I’ve ever had in my life!” I said.
“Why thank you,” said the total stranger who had offered me food. “But just to be clear it isn’t apple crumble but rather apple-flavoured pear crumble with artificial apple substitute,” she said.
“Do you have any ice cream to add to it?” I asked.
“No,” said the stranger.
I took another bite of the crumble, it was delicious, when my tongue touched the starch and sugars I immediately felt like the world still had hope and life still had meaning. I felt like the sun was shining even though the skies were grey. I felt like I was home even though I was in a park in a suburb in the middle of nowhere. The flavour of the apple-flavoured pear with artificial apple substitute was the perfect balance of sweet, tangy and mildly alcoholic. I was elated.
“Never mind,” I said. “This art, this monument of cuisine doesn’t need to be sullied by mere ice cream. Say, what was your name again?” I said.
“Oh I’m Doctor Maleficent Nefario.” she said.
Something about that name caught my interest.
“Are you a medical doctor?” I asked. I raised my arm to instinctually make an emotive but redundant hand gesture, only to watch my fingers crumble like sand.
This was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.
In this particular Joy of Writing meetup, the other writers had many fantasy and otherwise mystical stories.