The Mushroom
The house was cold when I came back. The fridge lifeless but for two different packets of beets and the defaulting light. Light, the Bible has us known, is a sign of life. But so is warmth.
I closed the door of the fridge before opening it again, slowly releasing the beets in and out of darkness. They didn’t seem to mind, but we also didn’t talk. I thought they looked lonely, but when I’m in a state, even a shoe pointed in a slightly downwards direction, spotted on a stranger on the train, can throw me into a fit of despair. Those tiny things break your heart like no tragedy can.
I resumed my pilgrimage through the house, opening and closing drawers like thoughts in my mind. I was looking for something, but I couldn’t exactly remember what it was. I just knew I wanted to take stock somehow, because, even to a language-tethered person like me, there’s nothing more comforting than counting. I’m numerophobic, but arithmophiliac (see – words, oh what beautiful words! I could put them in a dish and eat them raw). You don’t have to know maths to find solace in numbers. (It was never about the sheep.)
And so I counted: One (1) house. Two (2) floors. There were two-hundred-and-fifty-one (251) books, magazines and journals not included. I found six (6) big paintings, and so many postcards (x) I got too tired to keep counting but not tired enough to fall asleep. There was the aforementioned fridge. Weak winter light was streaming unhindered through the empty rooms. It was beautiful, and for a moment, I wished it could stay like this until I remembered you can’t live that way. Contrary to what some people, so-called breatharianists, claim during their tragic, short-lived Youtube spells, you can’t live off light and, no matter what 17th century poetry and Hallmark want to make you believe, you can’t live off love, either. You gotta eat.
I open the fridge again. I know now what I was looking for, but couldn’t find. It was him: Big, with soft, brown skin, and tiny hairs that made my mouth involuntarily open with pleasure when they brushed against my fingers. I remember the silky, sponge-like feel of his flesh when he grazed the blade of my silver knife. A tangy smell steaming up the kitchen, a small space loaded with forks and pots and pans and scissors and spices. A kitchen that was nothing like the one now, except it was the same.
It was before I had started to routineously poison my husband by cooking sophisticated meals of dangerous fungi I had hand-picked myself. It was before we found out that the only way we could live together was if he died a little. It was never enough.
He took up so much room. How much, I only realized when I fumbled the recipe, and he left one last time, deserting the apartment with zero (o) furniture. I told you I have trouble with numbers.
Of course, he didn’t die that day. But something else did. And the elusive mushroom, of course. Why should he die for a relationship that was toxic long before he sprung into my kitchen? Now my house is empty and cold. I never cooked again – what for? Light is a sign of life. But so is warmth.
*If you have seen Phantom Thread (2017), this mushroom p(l)ot might seem a little less elusive to you.
